It was unlikely that a film nominally about goat testicles would be one of the most innovative, self-critiquing documentaries of this year, but Penny Lane’s smart, funny and deeply sad new film, Nuts!, should take its rightful place alongside other recent structurally subversive docs like The Arbor and Taboo.
Like Errol Morris’ gonzo documentary of sex, brainwashing and the nature of celebrity, Nuts! is another stranger-than-fiction tale that’s constantly annotating its own storytelling. While Taboo occasionally felt like it was overly moderating itself for clarity, Nuts! interrupts the escalating absurdity only when it’s essential—instead allowing the narrative to move at its own frenetically satisfying pace.
Told almost entirely in an animation style that’s the visual combination of Waltz with Bashir and Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, along with a smattering of archival footage and occasional interviews, the film tells the true story of John Romulus Brinkley, an early 20th century doctor. Brinkley became a phenomenon through his unusual fertility remedies, and later, an accidental footnote in the history of public radio.
Brinkley’s fame was a perfect storm of the right time and place. He was an effortlessly charismatic figure working in the minuscule town of Milford, Kansas at a time before there was widespread knowledge of medicine, and he swooped in like a wizard to fix everyone’s problems. His methods were an ideal evangelism tool with their bizarre ingredients and miracle-inducing effects.
He positioned himself as a man of the people, conjuring pathos that would overwhelm any rhetorical argument and attracting followers in droves. And he was an unlikely pioneer on the radio, simultaneously spearheading the introduction of Americana/country strands and medical advice to the masses.
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