''Dear Mr. Brody'' is a 2021

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed and produced by Keith Maitland. The film centers on letters written to

Michael James Brody Jr Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

. (born October 31, 1948; died January 26, 1973) from the general public in response to Brody Jr.'s announcement (in early January 1970) that he would give away his inherited fortune (purported to be 25 million USD) to those in need.

Synopsis

When 21-year-old Brody Jr. (heir to the Jelke

oleomargarine Margarine (, also , ) is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was orig ...

company) announced his intention to give away his inheritance to anyone in need, he ignited a spiral of events that captured the media's attention. Brody, along with his newlywed wife Renee, became instant world-wide celebrities who were then mobbed by the American public, scrutinized by the press, and overwhelmed by an avalanche of letters responding to his offer. Nearly fifty-years after Brody Jr.'s death, a sampling of the enormous surviving unopened letters sent to him were opened for the camera, exposing a snapshot of America's

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

communal Communal may refer to: *A commune or also intentional community * Communalism (Bookchin) * Communalism (South Asia), the South Asian sectarian ideologies *Relating to an administrative division called comune * Sociality in animals *Community owne ...

, zeitgeist. In Maitland's follow-up to his 2016 mostly-

animated documentary The animated documentary (also known as anidoc) is a moving image form that combines animation and documentary. This form should not be confused with documentaries about movie and TV animation history that feature excerpts. History The fi ...

''TOWER'' , he reveals the story of Brody Jr. — and the countless people who sought his help — to create an exposé on desire, need, philanthropy, and love.

Release

The film had its virtual premiere at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

on March 16, 2021. The film's world premiere was scheduled for the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

in April 2020, but the festival was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. It was also selected to screen at the Telluride Film Festival in September 2020, prior to its cancellation. In October 2021,

Discovery+ Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discover ...

and Greenwich Entertainment were announced to have acquired distribution rights to the film. It is scheduled to be released on March 4, 2022, prior to streaming on Discovery+ on April 28, 2022.

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, 96% of 28 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Dear Mr. Brody'' uses its stranger-than-fiction true story to take a touching look at how an act of kindness can reverberate for years."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 78 out of 100 based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 6438382
Michael Brody Jr. Letters
at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, NY 2021 films 2021 documentary films American documentary films Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic Topic Studios films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films