If you hear the title “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” (2025) and go, “Who,” then this review is for you. If you are a fan, you do not need a review and probably have already seen the documentary. A musician’s musician whom some considered the best singer of all time, Jeff Buckley made one hit album titled “Grace” before he accidentally drowned while struggling to make his second posthumously released album. The title references a lyric in his song, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.” Documentarian Amy Berg makes a chronological biography predominantly told in Buckley’s own words and stories from the people who loved him. Is there a reason to watch a documentary about a person that you do not know?
I watched “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” for two reasons. Magnolia Pictures generally makes a solid movie, so it is easier to trust them when I’m not into the subject, but they are also great communicators and send the screener over soon after the press release. That’s how I ended up watching “Folktales” (2025). When I read the movie description, it sounded very familiar to a movie that I recently saw, “Singing in My Sleep” (2024) so if you like that movie, this documentary may pique your interest.
If you are a fan of Berg’s work, then “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” is for you. Berg crossed my path with two memorable documentaries: “Deliver Is from Evil” (2006), her first film, and “Janis: Little Girl Blue” (2015), which is a must see even for people who are not into Janis Joplin because of how her life is emblematic of American history during her lifetime. This documentary feels more intimate and less meta. Many of the stories are reminiscent of stories that anyone would tell about their son, their boyfriend or their coworker except he happened to be a famous artist, which means that unlike the folks next door, more people are curious. His first New York girlfriend, Rebecca Moore, founder of the Institute for Animal Happiness who used to work in experimental theater when she dated Buckley, said, “Jeff had this desire to be liked and loved and connect to people.” If the stories are not about his music, they sound like this and are uttered as if these observations are profound, but such feelings are universal, which makes Buckley seem like a film about an ordinary man. It is actually a feat to make an icon, especially a singer who died too young, seem normal without overdoing it. Just see “The Life of Chuck” (2025).
“It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” consists of archival footage of various concerts, audio of interviews with Buckley, answering machines messages that could be as extensive as an Orson Welles’ radio production, montages of news articles, handwritten notebook excerpts with sketches and personal photographs, animation including of his handwriting and exclusive interviews with music execs and professionals like Kate Hyman, Andy Wallace, Michele Anthony, Don Ienner, Merry Cyr and Jack Bookbinder fangirling over Buckley as opposed to sounding jaded. Ben Harper, Michael Tighe, Parker Kindred, Karl Berger, Susan Silver, Chris Cornell, Matt Johnson, David and Tammy Shouse are some famous friends and collaborators who can’t stop singing Buckley’s praises.
“It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” may inadvertently be the perfect documentary to describe the dangers of parentification and how visitation with a distant parent can sometimes cause more damage than good. As a story about doing things that seem theoretically good and well intentioned, but was actually dangerous as illustrated in Buckley’s childhood, it is a sobering tale. Mary Guibert, Buckley’s mom, and Buckley in his own words describe the one time that he met his father, Tim Buckley, a famous folk singer who died soon after of a drug overdose. If you are a folk singer fan, then you will recognize Buckley’s bio dad’s name, but if you are not, the film does enough legwork to bring viewers up to speed before launching into their story.
It is a sadly typical tale of a dad who gets a new family, which includes prioritized stepchildren and no bio siblings, and pays little attention to his bio kid. Like many parents, Guibert believes any chance for her son to hang out with his absent parent is better than none, but it is only part of a pattern of not protecting Buckley and putting him in a situation that a child is not mature enough to navigate. According to Guibert, Buckley poured love into his mom and protected her. Because Buckley hung out with artists, not cynical lawyers and psychologists, everyone sees the mother-son relationship as close and beneficial, but Berg lets the camera linger on Guibert as she describes a rocky moment with her son and plays a voicemail revealing that Buckley may have gradually begun to wake up to this form of unintentional child abuse of having to parent his mom. Buckley advises, “You can’t be a girl anymore, mama. You’ve got to be a woman.” That was heartbreaking.
“It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” predominantly focuses on the two loves of his life: the aforementioned Moore and Joan Wasser, who is famous as solo artist Joan As Police Woman. As a young woman, Wasser kind of resembled Madonna (compliment). Aimee Mann, whom I recognized (insert Captain America meme), was another potential love interest, but she kept him at arm’s length recognizing that he did not suit her because of his “liquid quality.” Berg never inserts herself into the proceeding, but it would have been great if she had teased out that description and explored whether his cause of death influenced her wording in part. Because it comes after Moore’s description of how Buckley and she parted ways amicably, it made sense. Though everybody, including Moore, describes him as pro-women, with Moore, he lost the ability to arrive at events on time but afterwards sounded contrite and apologetic without changed behavior thus missing their Valentine’s Day date and her performances. As bad music star boyfriends go, these infractions are decent and mild.
As “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” approaches the end of his life and the production of his second album, not his personal life, it really requires that the viewer be interested in his music and his aforementioned renown people around him to stay absorbed. If you are not, you will stop focusing and be ready to wrap up the movie long before it ends. It becomes a countdown to inevitable tragedy and a poignant memorial that attempts without a real sense of certainty to retrace his emerging mental health issues and confrontation of issues whose seeds were planted in childhood. It is the usual reverse engineering to learn from others’ mistakes to avoid future loss.
If you are in the mood to get exposed to musicians that you are unfamiliar with but are part of an indisputable pantheon of all-time greats, then definitely check out “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley.” Check out the trailer and skip it if you are not open to learning about someone who may not be aligned with your musical tastes.
