We went and saw The Long Game today. It’s an adaptation of a true story about the golf team from San Felipe High School in Del Rio, Texas, set in the 1950s. I’ll keep spoilers out of it, but they’re a group of Mexican-American boys who all caddied at an upscale private country club in their community. They aspired to play golf themselves but weren’t allowed on the course except to caddie, so they built their own crude practice course in the middle of the South Texas desert. They’re brought together as a golf team under their coach (JB Peña), who has just taken a job as an Assistant Superintendent at the high school and is an avid golfer. He also aspires to membership at the (all-white) country club where the boys work, but is denied because of his ethnicity.

They face a lot of obstacles and discrimination in the golf world and the community as a whole as they strive for legitimacy and acceptance, and deal with their own individual struggles in handling and overcoming it. Cheech Marin plays “Pollo”, a longtime employee of the country club who shares his (often humorous) outlook and serves as kind of a mentor to both the youths and Peña. They’re also helped by Frank Mitchell (Dennis Quaid), a former PGA Tour player who is a member at the country club but sees potential in the youths, so he takes on the role of teaching them the game and uses his influence as a country club member to get them into golf tournaments.

It’s a great story with some unforeseen twists and turns, a good mix of humor and drama, and some very touching moments. It’s a golf movie, but one that non-golfers can enjoy equally (my non-golfing wife was actually the one who found it and wanted to go see it, and she enjoyed it a lot). If you’re looking for a movie to go see, it’s worth your time.

In the late 1950s, Charles “Chuck” Dederich started a drug rehabilitation program out of a storefront in Santa Monica. A recovering alcoholic who’d gotten sober through Alcoholics Anonymous, Dederich offered free treatment to self-described “dope fiends” desperate to kick their deadly habit and go cold turkey.

Over the next decade and a half, the group, named Synanon, expanded across the country and evolved into a self-help movement with thousands of members, including many who were not addicts but were simply drawn to its idealistic vision — no drugs, alcohol, or violence — and its primary ritual, an intensely confrontational form of group therapy known as “The Game.”

Yet by the late 1970s, Synanon had strayed dramatically from its original mission, devolving into a dangerous quasi-religious paramilitary organization whose devotees, beholden to Dederich’s increasingly erratic whims, were willing to undergo forced vasectomies, relinquish control over their own children and even attempt to murder a prominent critic by planting a rattlesnake in his mailbox.

The dark saga of Synanon is now the subject of a four-part documentary “The Synanon Fix,” concluding Monday on HBO. Directed and executive produced by Rory Kennedy, the series traces the group’s utopian origins and gradual descent into violence and manipulation. Arriving at a moment when the public’s interest in cults and high-control groups seems almost insatiable, “The Synanon Fix” offers a particularly grim, resonant twist on the familiar tale of the California dream gone awry.

The story “had this really dramatic, almost Shakespearean arc to it,” said writer and executive producer Mark Bailey, in a video chat with Kennedy from their home in California (the couple are filmmaking partners and have also been married since 1999). “The intentions and accomplishments for the first decade or so were really amazing. But where it ended up was really dark and destructive.”

Kennedy, who has made more than a dozen documentaries including “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” and “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” said she was not particularly interested in “quote-unquote cult stories,” but was struck by the drama of Synanon’s 180-degree transformation. “In the beginning the pillars of Synanon were no drugs, no alcohol and no violence. By the end, they had bought more firearms than anybody in the history of California and had an open bar in the facility.”

Not only was the story dramatic, but it contained lessons about the dangers of blindly following a charismatic leader — a topic that feels politically relevant in 2024. Dederich was just such a figure, someone who built a community and inspired intense loyalty from his followers. “Because they’re tethered to him, where he goes, they go. And that’s the danger — as he starts becoming less stable, whether it’s from his alcoholism or mental illness, he takes Synanon with it,” Bailey said. “That felt, to us, like an important thing to say right now.” (Along with many members of her famous family, Kennedy, whose brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president as an independent, endorsed President Biden last week.)

Kennedy and Bailey first learned about Synanon about a decade ago while reading “Straight Life,” an autobiography by jazz musician Art Pepper and his wife, Laurie, who met while getting clean in Synanon. “I had never heard of Synanon, but it’s right there on the beach, these folks with shaved heads, playing ‘The Game,’ which sounds like this pretty radical therapeutic treatment,” Bailey said. “I was instantly like, ‘Wow, what was this? And why have I never heard about it?’”

The documentary is woven together using extensive archival material — including news reports and visceral footage of members playing “The Game,” in which participants were aggressively pushed to be brutally honest about themselves and each other. It also features audio recordings of Dederich lecturing his followers over “the Wire,” the group’s internal broadcasting system, as well as first-person accounts from roughly 20 former members and interviews with journalists including Narda Zacchino, who wrote about Synanon for The Times.

Some former members were initially wary of sitting for interviews, Kennedy said, because “everybody was aware that there was a way to tell this story that’s pretty sensationalist.” But as she gradually won them over, more people decided to participate in the documentary — including Dederich’s daughter, Jady Dederich Montgomery.

After years of wrangling, the filmmakers were also able to secure access to Synanon’s archives, which included thousands of photos and “a treasure trove of extraordinary footage,” according to Kennedy. Because this happened just weeks before they were set to lock picture, they had to ask HBO for several more months and more money to recut the documentary. “To their credit, they agreed,” said Kennedy.

Interviewing people who spent years in Synanon playing “The Game” was both fascinating and challenging, she said.

“On average for documentaries, which I’ve now been doing for 25 years, the interviews are maybe two to three hours long. None of these were less than seven hours. Some of them went for nine hours, in like a sitting.” At times, Kennedy felt she was playing “The Game” with her subjects. “They would talk back to me more about how they were feeling about the interview as the interview was happening.”

Kennedy takes a straightforward approach in “The Synanon Fix,” allowing the story to unfold chronologically and spending time explaining the group’s origins before diving into the rattlesnakes and mate-swapping.

“This was a community that was taking a big swing at something that was really ahead of its time, in many ways, in terms of how it was treating drug addicts, who had been a very ostracized community,” said Kennedy. “They either went to jail, or they went to a mental hospital, or they died.”

Viewers learn how Synanon, which eventually moved into the historic Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, began to attract a wider array of followers with the rise of the counterculture in the late 1960s. “Lifestylers,” as they were known, were people who joined Synanon because they were seeking a sense of purpose and belonging, not to treat their addiction. They saw the group as “a cure for loneliness and alienation,” said Bailey, and “The Game” as a way to heighten connection and sense of community. Some also donated large sums of money and professional services to the organization.

Throughout the ‘70s Dederich became increasingly dictatorial, making bizarre demands of his followers that had little to do with the group’s original mission. He required members to shave their heads and follow stringent diets and exercise regimens. Men were pressured into getting vasectomies and women into having abortions. After his wife died and he remarried, Dederich urged married couples to divorce and take new partners assigned to them. Eventually, Dederich fell off the wagon and rolled back the group’s ban on alcohol. Children were separated from their parents and had to shave their heads and play “The Game” just like adults, even if they lacked the ability to understand it. Some children allegedly were beaten and forced to do grueling labor.

Throughout the decade, Synanon faced mounting criticism including charges of kidnapping and child abuse, but its members grew ever more militant, stockpiling weapons and forming a militia called the Imperial Marines. The group made national headlines in 1978 when a lawyer named Paul Morantz, who had won a $300,000 settlement from Synanon, nearly died from a rattlesnake bite after Synanon zealots planted the animal in his mailbox.

The incident marked a breaking point for some adherents, but not all.

One of the more striking aspects of the series is how many former members still seem to believe in the Synanon cause — and remain grateful to Dederich, who died more than 25 years ago, for saving their lives.

The series’ central question is “Did the cure become a cult?,” and the filmmakers don’t entirely agree on the answer.

Bailey is not fully convinced Synanon fits the definition of a cult, if only because “there is something that feels too random and disorganized in what it was trying to do,” he said.

Kennedy is more confident in using the term. “I talked to enough people who felt like they compromised their moral compass to follow an idea that drove them in directions that they didn’t feel they should have gone in. That’s a defining quality of a cult,” she said, gently needling her husband for his more ambivalent take. “If you were there, you would have stuck with it to the end, clearly,” she said, laughing. “Sucker is what you are.”

Regardless of how they classify the group, the filmmakers see “The Synanon Fix” as a quintessentially Californian story about the kinds of spiritual seekers who’ve been drawn to the state for generations.

“You think of the people who move West as already kind of having searching in their DNA,” said Bailey. “We came out here about 14 years ago, but both of us were born and raised on the East Coast. And it was really something to get used to how you are allowed to just follow your own weird jam and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, that’s great.’”

“I can’t do retakes in my life”

The intense emergence of films about films that has been happening the last few years in Asian cinema is probably one of the most exciting concepts to be taking place in the region’s cinema. Yandy Laurens tries his hand in the (sub) genre, through an approach that provides one of its apogees.

The film shows its colors (pun intended) from the introductory scene. A script writer, Bagus (who is played by Ringgo Agus Rahman) enters the office of his producer, Yoram, who, once more, wants him to adapt another successful TV drama to a movie. Bagus, however, has another concept in his mind, of a black-and-white rom-com which is based on his actual experience, after meeting Hana, his old high school flames, and pursues a romantic relationship with her, even though it has just been 4 months since her husband died. As soon as he mentions black-and-white, the frame and the color of the movie change to suit his words, and the narrative changes to his actual experiences. Since the producer agrees, though, the shooting of the film actually becomes part of the narrative, which has it moving within and outside the film creating various meta levels, in a way that can only be compared with “One Cut of the Dead”, although in completely different, rom-com prism this time.

Yandy Laurens shoots a very ambitious project, with the aforementioned, meta-layer approach being quite difficult to implement in theory, but he manages to pass the ‘test’ with flying colors. The way the story moves inside and outside the movie is impressive, while allowing him to make a number of quite realistic comments, both regarding the shooting of movies and how the industry works in Indonesia. Regarding the latter, the discussions with the producer are rather indicative. Bagus wants to make an artistic black-and-white rom-com following the 8 chapter “rule” of the genre (which he also actually does in the actual movie). Yoram, on the other hand, having commercial success in his mind, wants him either to adapt a TV drama, or if the script is original, to at least be a horror. Another solution comes from having big names in it, either in the director’s seat (with the name of Riri Riza coming up) or in the cast. Lastly, the final solution if nothing else works, is to make the movie fast with the least possible cost, in a comment that essentially applies to the whole independent movie industry.

Furthermore, that two of the protagonists in the movie, Cheline and Dion (you get it, right?), a married couple who are Bagus’s best friends, are the editor and the main actor of his movie, allows Laurens to present how films work, both during the shoot and around it. The appearance of Julie Estelle as essentially herself adds to both this element, and the meta one we described just before, with the same applying with Dion Wiyoko who plays Dion.

This whole aspect, however, finds its apogee in the ‘racing scene” where an impressive Sheila Dara Aisha as Cheline dictates how the movie should look in the scene, with what we are seeing on the screen actually following her words. The drone shot that moves around and back to the bike she along with Dion and Bagus are riding is probably the most impressive in the whole movie, as is actually the whole sequence, where, additionally, Dimas Bagus Triatma Yoga’s cinematography and Hendra Adhi Susanto’s editing find their zenith.

The presence of the also excellent Nirina Zubir as Hana, on the other hand, and her interactions with Bagus, allow for more character analysis and a series of social comments having to do with relationships, essentially adding yet another level to the movie. The concept of grief and the possibility of finding true love at a later age in life is the most obvious one, but Laurens also talks about how people can become rather self-centered with their feelings, ignoring those of others in the process. That the one in fault here is Bagus could be perceived as a comment regarding artists and how focused (in a negative way) can become with their art, with the way his interactions proceed with Hana essentially maturing him as the movie progresses. At the same time, the value of communication and being truthful is highlighted too, adding even more to the rather rich narrative here. Lastly, that cinema can imitate life, but it is not the same as living and experiencing it, emerges as one of the most smart and accurate remarks Laurens makes.

Check also this interview

Through the aforementioned, the performance by Ringgo Agus Rahman also emerges as excellent, with his interactions with the rest of the protagonists, showcasing, additionally, the outstanding chemistry between them.

The film can be a bit too dialogue-heavy on occasion, and would definitely benefit from a tighter ending, but these are just minor issues here, with “Falling in Love Like in Movies” emerging as a film that is rather smart and intelligent, rather fun, rather informative, and rather entertaining in equal measures.