‘Documentary Now!’ Season 4 Review: This Is Movie Nerd Paradise

Cate Blanchett, Alexander Skarsgard and Tom Jones appear in the new season of the IFC comedy series that hasn’t missed a beat

Alexander Skarsgård in "Documentary Now!"
Alexander Skarsgård in "Documentary Now!" (IFC)

It may be sacrilege to say this: but I’d rather watch Cate Blanchett in a “Documentary Now!” episode than conducting the Berlin Phil while harassing young female virtuosos in the hysteria-tinged arthouse Oscar bait “Tár.”

Among the double Oscar winner’s finest roles was her take last season on the self-serious Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramovich in the breathlessly hilarious “Waiting for the Artist.” Now, in the new Season 4 (or “Season 53” as the producers tease) premiering Oct. 19 on IFC, Blanchett returns. She plays a forlorn, bespectacled village hairdresser in a riff on beauty-themed docs, “Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport,” opposite “Succession’s” eat-her-young matriarch Lady Caroline Collingwood (Harriet Walter).

Perhaps it all comes down to taste, but I can’t imagine Blanchett better than the wildly freeing, reality-rooted comic performances to which she fully commits here. Carol?” Not hardly.

The series is the brainchild of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers and Rhys Thomas. Among its inspirations are “Take the Money and Run,” “Zelig” and, of course, the “Ben-Hur” of the moc-doc, “This Is Spinal Tap.” As always, put it up to eleven, Nigel.

Noting these touchstones, Hader said to the eminently factual magazine “The Smithsonian” that he told his creative collaborators Thomas and Alex Buono, “This is the mood of the show: very serious, very dry, but with insane jokes and crazy moments. You don’t want to wink too much at the audience.”

And that mood has been captured again and again, with a two-part premiere followed by four new spot-on and outrageous episodes. This season shows no sign of flagging, as documentaries have multiplied, evolving from their one-time position as red-headed stepchild to feature films to streaming giants. (I love the title sequence reference to Barbara Kopple’s seminal “Harlan County, USA,” the first doc that registered for me.)

From the retro-urgency of the opening theme, to Helen Mirren’s demure host in sensible shoes and fading-into-the-forest-green frock, hands clasped, knees locked, the show offers the comfort of the genre’s known parameters exploded by the brain trust of Hader, Meyers, Armisen, John Mulaney, et. al.    

Among the most unsparing is a spoof on the 2021 Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winner about an emotionally-stunted navel-gazer and the director’s evolving relationship with his mollusk subject. “My Octopus Teacher” gets the full treatment here. A popular yet polarizing film, its peculiar blend of lush underwater photography, inter-species romantic projection and masculine narcissism, lends itself to parody. It inspired “My Monkey Grifter,” a twisty tale written by Meyers and directed by and starring Jamie Demetriou. Like its predecessor, it’s both engrossing and repellant. To quote Dame Helen’s introduction: “If a dog is a man’s best friend, what is a monkey?”

With Mulaney taking his screenwriting shot, he bases “Soldiers of Illusions” on the Les Blank cinema verité classic shot on location in the Peruvian jungle with Werner Herzog, “Burden of Dreams.” The “making of” format about a “making of” documentary is accurate and riotous, with Alexander Skarsgard showing his comedy chops as the monomaniacal director.

The “Northman” star toggles between mustached young filmmaker and the haunted man he’s become two decades later as he returns to the set. In earlier days, he vigorously plays soccer in briefs with the indigenous locals; later, his hair disappears to wispy strands semi-concealing age spots. Young or old, he’s prone to rambling pronouncements dropped in a thick accent like “A wilderness with a camera is no longer a wilderness…but an illusion resembling a wilderness.” All we can do is nod.

There are more: “How They Threw Rocks” is an antic spoof of the late Leon Gast’s Oscar-winning sports doc “Muhammed Ali: When We Were Kings.” It’s set to a jazzy score in the competitive Welsh rock-hurling world, and contains surprise cameos from Tom Jones, Jonathan Pryce and others. In an entirely different tone, “Trouver Frisson” takes its inspiration from Agnes Varda, following a director named Ida Leos (Liliane Rovere) as she struggles to recover her frisson, her goosebump-raising mojo, late in her career. 

I’m taken with the range and depth of knowledge displayed by the writers and directors, the astute cultural criticism wedded to the irreverence of “This Is Spinal Tap” and “Take the Money and Run.” This is shrewd humor rooted in a place of love and collaboration that inspires repeat watching. Taken together, “Documentary Now!” isn’t simply parody, but movie-nerd paradise unpaved.

“Documentary Now!” Season 4 debuts on IFC on Oct. 19 and will stream on AMC+.

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