The question at the center of Harmontown is: who is Dan Harmon and why are his loyal fans willing to pay money to see him live on stage when he doesn’t have an act?
Harmontown is a LA-based podcast hosted by Harmon, the creator of Community and Rick and Morty, and his longtime friend, improviser Jeff B. Davis. The show also features Harmon’s fiancee Erin McGathy and dungeon master Spencer Crittenden, who leads a continuing Dungeons and Dragons campaign on stage each week. Outside of the running D&D campaign, most of the show is improvised on the spot and features Harmon bearing his soul to a live audience and giving them a platform to come onstage and bear theirs.
The documentary follows Harmon and Co. as they embark on a cross country tour. The tour took place in January 2013, a time when Harmon was fired from Community and was shopping pilots to CBS and Fox.
The documentary was produced by Harmon, but he gave complete editorial control to writer/director Neil Berkeley. And while the film certainly promotes Harmon and his podcast, it doesn’t shy away from portraying him in a negative light. There are a series of confessional-style interviews with his friends and coworkers who talk about the difficulties of working with Harmon. And there are several moments in the documentary where we see Harmon and McGathy having very real, very painful arguments.
Harmon himself grapples with the idea that he may be the villain of his own documentary. (As fans of Harmon would expect, he manages to turn the whole documentary into a meta examination of the documentary process by constantly acknowledging the cameras and discussing the film itself.) Part of the reason he is so beloved is because he’s unflinchingly honest, but even he knows that honesty isn’t enough. Acknowledging that you are a bad person doesn’t let you off the hook. You have to actually make a change in your life to make a difference.
And if he is in fact the villain, it is Spencer Crittenden who emerges as the hero of the documentary. Crittenden was a fan of the podcast who went to a live show hoping that he would get to play D&D with Harmon. And, as fate would have it, that night Harmon asked if there were any dungeon masters in the audience because he was hoping to start playing a live campaign.
Crittenden, like many of Harmon’s fans, was a shy introvert and the tour really pushed him out of his comfort zone. Watching his journey is incredibly inspiring and he’s impossible not to love.
The best moments in the documentary are when you see the effect Harmon has had on his fan’s lives – Spencer being the most obvious example. (Harmon and Davis both have really wonderful individual moments with Crittendon where they get a chance to pull him aside and tell him how much he means to them, which both really got me.) But there are plenty of other times in the film where people come up to Harmon after the show and share how he’s changed their lives, including a girl with Asperger who tells him that Abed on Community helped her cope with her diagnosis. There is also a wonderful shot of a college film student walking out of an interview with Harmon who plays it cool until he gets around the corner, then his face lights up as it sinks in that he just got to be in a room with his idol.
The film certainly touches on the central question of why Harmonians are so enthralled by Dan Harmon, but I found myself wishing it explored the topic further. Instead, it is part character study and part tour diary, with brief glimpses into Harmon’s tumultuous Hollywood past. I wish it had a bit more focus on any one of these directions, instead of just a surface examination of all of them.
I also felt the documentary did a poor job initiating viewers who aren’t overly familiar with Harmon’s backstory. It plays more as a movie for Harmontown fans – in many ways a behind-the-scenes companion piece to the podcast. Very little is told about Davis and McGathy’s backgrounds and how they came to be a part of Harmon’s life. And during the confessional interviews, the subjects’ names never appear on-screen, so if you don’t already recognize them, you’ll have no clue who these people discussing Harmon are. (Which doesn’t seem like a big deal when it’s Joel McHale or Alison Brie, but people like Harmon’s writing partners Rob Schrab and Justin Roiland are far less recognizable to the general public.)
But even with its flaws, it is a very moving look at a controversial figure who inspires a disenfranchised group of people. It’s hard to watch it and not like Harmon, even as you see why he can be such a ticking time bomb.
Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his reviews, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. You can contact Joel at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.