''Robin's Wish'' is a 2020 American

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 by Tylor Norwood. The film offers a look into the life and final days of

Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and come ...

, and how his struggles with

diffuse Lewy body disease Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a type of dementia characterized by changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and regulation of automatic bodily functions. Memory loss is not always an early symptom. The disease worsens over time an ...

impacted his acting career and contributed to his death by suicide. The film was produced by Ben Sinclair, executive produced by physician and journalist,

Shoshana R. Ungerleider Shoshana Rebecca Ungerleider is an American medical doctor, journalist and film producer. She was educated at The University of Oregon and Oregon Health and Science University. As of June 2021, Ungerleider is the host of the TED Health Podcast, p ...

and released digitally and on-demand on September 1, 2020.

Background

Robin Williams' widow, Susan Schneider Williams, chose the film's title, and approached director Tylor Norwood to make the film. Initially resistant, Norwood said he wanted to help people "understand the pain illiamsfelt as his talents and faculties rapidly slipped away" and he hopes the film "rights a wrong that was done to him, and takes away a cloud that has unjustly hung over his legacy for far too long." Interviews include Susan Williams and Shawn Levy (who directed Williams in the '' Night at the Museum'' series), as well as

John R. Montgomery John R. Montgomery IV is an American television producer and advertising industry veteran. He is the Founder and President of Montgomery Studios, a content creation studio with an emphasis on television development and production. Montgomery's Execu ...

and David E. Kelley, who both worked with Williams on the TV series '' The Crazy Ones''.

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

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 ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 90%, based on 58 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''Robin's Wish'' offers an emotional look at the end of a life suddenly cut short—and pays warm tribute to the brilliant legacy that was left behind." On

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 ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Frank Scheck Frank Scheck is an American film critic. He is best known for his reviews in the ''New York Post'' and ''The Hollywood Reporter''. He formerly edited ''STAGES Magazine'' and worked as a theater critic for the ''Christian Science Monitor Ch ...

of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' called the film "a moving coda to a life ended much too soon" and wrote: "''Robin's Wish'' suffers at times from its lack of objectivity. Williams' widow is clearly the project's driving force, with much of the story told from her perspective (his children, on the other hand, are not heard from at all). Nonetheless, the film, which incorporates testimony from several medical experts, fully succeeds in its admirable goal of using Williams' story to shed light on a disease with which many people were previously unfamiliar."

References

External links

* 2020 documentary films 2020 films American documentary films American biographical films Films about mental states Lewy body dementia Robin Williams 2020s English-language films 2020s American films {{bio-documentary-film-stub