My Psychedelic Love Story

2020

1h 41m

Documentary

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90%

30 Reviews

Tomatometer

62%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

Filmmaker Errol Morris examines the love affair between LSD guru Timothy Leary and Joanna Harcourt-Smith.

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Premiered Sep 26

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Critics Consensus

Presenting a rollicking history of counterculture and espionage through Joanna Harcourt-Smith's idiosyncratic point of view, My Psychedelic Love Story is a heady trip worth taking.

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brent m

To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it was" (emphasis on the word "long"). Director Errol Morris's protracted Showtime TV documentary about Joanna Harcourt-Smith, LSD guru Timothy Leary's so-called "perfect woman," tells the story of their time together at the height of the psychedelic era, including their globe-trotting days on the run from authorities to evade capture for drug law violations. While some of Harcourt-Smith's stories are indeed entertaining and colorful, many of them ramble on endlessly, leaving viewers wondering if they have a point -- or a conclusion. Meanwhile, others are so outlandish that they stretch credibility and come across more like tall tales, a possibility that's not entirely improbable given Harcourt-Smith's own admission to having been a chronic liar in her youth. Ultimately, though, much of this film just isn't particularly interesting, a collection of essentially insignificant anecdotes that don't shed any revelatory light on the principals, the era in which they lived or their legacies. It seems like this material could have provided rich fodder for an engaging picture, but it instead presents little more than a name-dropping counterculture tell-all, the kind of story swapping to come out of a conclave of aging hippies.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

A wild and fascinating ride into the jet set super hip lives of the high and famous. Anyone who was there on any level, or wishes they were, shouldn’t miss it. Of course it wouldn’t hurt to be beautiful and wealthy to get into the lifestyle. But why not just sit back and enjoy the ride vicariously by watching this film.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/23/20

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Audience Member

If you are looking beyond contemporary motivations for armed rebellion, stick some angry mob in front of this woman. If they finish watching the ENTIRE film, the revolution's over.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

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Errol Morris

Director

Joanna Harcourt-Smith

Self

Errol Morris

Executive Producer

Robert Fernandez

Producer

Steven Hathaway

Producer

Igor Martinovic

Cinematographer

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Neal Justin

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Smith isn't the most reliable narrator, but she weaves a great yarn, one that suggests a jaw-dropping conspiracy, sprinkled with cameos from Francis Ford Coppola, Keith Richards and Andy Warhol. It's a trip.

Dec 31, 2020

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Angie Han

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

She's very charismatic and it's fun to hang out with her for awhile, even if I'm not sure what the stories add up to.

Dec 12, 2020

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Claudia Puig

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

A pretty entertaining history of counterculture and espionage... It is intriguing and humorous, [although] sometimes a little too rambling.

Dec 12, 2020

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M.G. Mailloux

In Review Online

[My Psychedelic Love Story] is, in fact, a necessary correction of the hero worship that so often seeps into contemporary depictions of America's hippie movement.

Jun 5, 2021

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Rob Aldam

Backseat Mafia

A rip-roaring yarn about true love, high jinx and a hedonistic time when anything was possible.

Apr 23, 2021

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Andrew Bundy

The Playlist

The ideological questions asked are, of course, all-too relevant, but posteriorly lacking the moral shock of something like last year's Cold Case Hammarskjöld.

Rated: B-

Dec 31, 2020

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Synopsis

Filmmaker Errol Morris examines the love affair between LSD guru Timothy Leary and Joanna Harcourt-Smith.

Director: Errol Morris
Producer: Errol Morris
Production Co: Fourth Floor Productions, Moxie Pictures
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 29, 2020
Runtime: 1h 41m

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