Neil: “Picture yourself on a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies…” The first words from The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The band might’ve claimed it was based on a drawing one of their kids brought home from school, but those initials don’t lie. It’s pretty clear that the song is an anthem for acid, and not the kind you learn about in your Chem class. No, it’s the kind you’ll learn about watching Have a Good Trip, Netflix’s newest documentary released this past week. The documentary is a trippy Bill Nye-esque episode about the realities of psychedelia, and turns drug education on its head. Good Trip features interviews from celebrities who’d totally be the type for hallucinogenics, including A$AP Rocky and drummer Bill Kreutzmann of acid-rock legends the Grateful Dead. On the flipside, it features interviews with people you’d never guess would touch the stuff, like Paul Sheer in all his gap-toothed glory.
The doc opens with a vintage film of a hand scrawling the letters LSD on a blackboard coupled with eerie music. It’s a video from 19-something-something that knocks down drugs in every way you’ve already heard it: foolish, childish, “like playing Russian Roulette.” Suddenly, the camera cuts to Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec (the last person you’d expect) who begins a monologue on why psychedelics might not be so bad after all, in his lab-coat get up making the whole operation seem like a kid’s TV show. Not something you’d imagine he’d do, after Offerman’s role as man’s-man Ron Swanson in Parks and Rec, and it's that sort of unexpectedness that sets the tone for the rest of the documentary. It features tips and tricks you wouldn’t see coming from a Netflix production and an unorthodox jumble of characters from across the entertainment world to tell their best drugged-out tales. Cue trippy music and visuals to lead into the meat of it.
In short, it’s a mixed bag of interpretations and opinions and information from all sorts of people. Sting from The Police and Deepak Chopra discuss the deep, universal consciousness aspect of it. The late Anthony Bourdain and Sarah Silverman talk about their first times on Acid. Everyone else, including Nick Kroll of Big Mouth and Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black), fall somewhere in between jokes and deep dives into the human psyche. It’s not necessarily going to stop you in your tracks or make your jaw hit the floor purely from a film perspective, but its not terrible either- all around a decent watch if you’ve got time to kill, and nothing you’d complain about. It’s got a weird cult film vibe at points, at times it's funny in a stoner-comedy type way (à la Dave Chappelle’s Half Baked) and takes place at a crossroads between the hippie context and the psychedelia of contemporary hip-hop. Film quality wise, it’s nothing incredible, but importance wise it’s paramount. It looks at drug education in a new light: it's an accurate lesson from all sides rather than avoiding the talk outright. Whether someone chooses to try psychedelics or not (emphasis on the not if it’s not legalized yet where you’re at) it's key that they know what they’re saying no to in the first place, and Have a Good Trip fills in those blanks. The tone it takes is “here are the facts, here are people who’ve tried it talking about it and at the end of the day, you decide.
Photo: Netflix
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