Ask Dr. Ruth is a 1 hour 40 minute documentary about Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the iconic sex therapist, who at the time of the making of this film was about to turn ninety years old. If you’re interested in her, you have to see it, and if you’re not, don’t. People interested in Holocaust survivor stories should also see this film. I’m a child of the 80s so while I may not have actually consumed any of her work, she was such a television fixture that it was impossible not to know who she is even in a fundamentalist Christian home. I jumped at the chance to learn more about the doctor now that I’m mature enough to absorb her substantive work.
When I saw that it was a Hulu film, which does not have the same ring of quality as Amazon Studios or Netflix, I wished that I waited to see the movie when it was available for home viewing instead of paying to see it in the theaters. Sorry, not sorry, but I was not wrong. Ask Dr. Ruth makes one crucial mistake. Dr. Westheimer is so famous because she is so distinctive: her appearance, her voice, her interests. When you’re going to see a movie about her, you’re going to see her. Unfortunately the filmmakers took a page out of Tower, a fantastic, must see documentary about the University of Texas shooting, and used animation to depict her childhood, but decided to get some random American woman to do her voice as a child. It had the opposite effect that Tower had. Either they should have gotten an actor with a similar voice or just have Dr. Westheimer do it. It completely took me out of the documentary and kept reminding me that I was watching something instead of completely absorbed by her life story.
Otherwise I liked Ask Dr. Ruth and found it inspiring. Her life story is not exactly told chronologically. It starts with catching up with what she is doing now. She isn’t retired and is still very busy with her work. The documentary eventually toggles back and forth between the animation and Dr. Ruth reminiscing with childhood friends and family about the past or discussing various hot button issues or making professional appearances.
Even if you’re not interested in Dr. Westheimer, this documentary and RBG may be good for elderly people to see because it shows that you can still be incredibly active, vibrant and relevant to all communities if you find something that you’re passionate about. Ask Dr. Ruth revealed that she didn’t find her life calling until her forties! She never got defeated by the circumstances of her life, but approached the world with great openness and optimism.
For example, I am not that person and have been known to say that after a certain number of marriages, at some point, you have to conclude that it is you, stop ruining other people’s lives and getting into relationships. Her advice is the opposite because she found true love at the third marriage. Her world is a much more forgiving and breathable space than mine which embraces humanity’s foibles as moments on a journey to discovering happiness as opposed to completely life altering.
Ask Dr. Ruth also resonated because the central message seemed to be that there is no such thing as normal, which helps her to take unpopular positions such as pro choice and against stigmatizing gay men during the AIDS crisis, but if it is not related to sex, then she stays in her lane and keeps quiet. I know that gender is not the same as sexual orientation, but it did feel like a missed opportunity not to hear her thoughts, if she has any or not, on transgender issues.
Dr. Westheimer is such a savvy media personality and endearing, engaging person who has literally been doing this schtick for decades that I’m not sure how much the filmmaker actually probed and crafted the story that he wanted to tell about her as opposed to the story that she wanted to tell. I definitely got the vibe that it was more about editing what she gave him than doing any independent research and approaching her to create the film. I’m not suggesting that he do an expose or that Ask Dr. Ruth is hiding the real story of Dr. Westheimer’s life, but that he probably used her video archives and her guidance regarding what we actually saw on screen. I imagine that editing was difficult, and a ton of great stuff ended up on the virtual cutting room floor. I also think that the filmmaker does a great job contextualizing Dr. Westheimer’s fame and the popular culture landscape at the time and hit all the right nostalgic notes, but the filmmaker and the subject felt like one person.
All documentaries have an innate conflict between access to a subject and making your own film. It is valuable to have someone with a little distance and a fresh perspective look at something in a different way than the subject. This fresh perspective does not have to lead to some scandalous revelation or a gotcha moment. It could be insightful and an epiphany, but if the filmmaker identifies too much with the subject, which is understandable because when you spend a lot of time with someone that you like, you begin to become a unit, then regardless of whether or not it is the original intent of the filmmaker, it becomes a vanity project for the subject that the filmmaker is using his or her funding to make. You become an employee without the benefits. After watching Ask Dr. Ruth, I felt as if neither the viewer, nor Dr. Westheimer discovered anything really substantially revelatory that was not already available if we were willing to look for it.
I don’t think that is an accident. Dr. Westheimer admits that she likes to keep busy, not be too introspective or go to therapy to deal with the pain in her life. She wants noise around her and not to be alone because stillness leads to confrontation with discomfort, and she is all about celebration. This attitude gave her a great life and professional success. Unfortunately that approach makes for a rather conventional film that is missing some element of texture that will make the documentary interesting in its own right apart from its subject. There is nothing unique about this documentary that will drive me to look for its signature touch if and when the filmmaker releases more work in the future.
I enjoyed Ask Dr. Ruth, but it is definitely better suited for home viewing than a big screen experience, and the documentary itself is not as memorable as the subject. While it contains many important life lessons and was a pleasant trip down memory lane, the film largely evaporates and creates no lasting artistic impact that distinguishes it from the standard televised biopic.
