The latest from Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room”) is titled “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.”
It hits HBO tonight at 8 p.m.
... both a brilliant expose that blows the lid off these practices, and a portal into the darker side of America's fetish for self-help. …
... Gibney spends a lot of time on Scientology’s celebrities, but those sections of the film pale next to the harrowing allegations of the church’s serious physical and psychological abuse, including exploited labor. …
... Apart from some blurry dramatic re-creation and a few fanciful images to illustrate the church's less advertised beliefs — its science fiction-style creation myth involving a galactic tyrant, a 75-million-year-old-world resembling 1950s America, overpopulation, tax audits, volcanoes, hydrogen bombs and the attachment of disembodied aliens to human newborns — Gibney's presentation is, given his hot topic, sensibly low-key. …
... hauntingly effective … Those who reach “OTIII” status are allowed to read Hubbard’s handwritten secrets locked away in a briefcase, a moment in which they discover that the key to it all is an intergalactic overlord named Xenu …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... an interesting and damning film … suggests Hollywood stars are essentially being blackmailed into staying in Scientology after divulging their deepest, darkest secrets as part of church “audits.” …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... jaw-dropping, scary, unnerving, even disturbingly funny. But the bad news for Scientology is that it’s also credible …
... fascinating … Gibney’s film paints a lurid picture indeed. … by focusing on the powerful and damning stories of the church’s most destructive practices, including the forced “disconnection” of members from family and friends, Gibney has made a forceful and memorable case. …
... even those who’ve already read Wright’s bestseller will find themselves amazed and enraged by the documentary that was inspired by his book. … it’s disturbingly good.
… The [Sundance Film Festival’s] most hotly anticipated documentary did not disappoint … The revelations were almost as numerous as the number of lawyers HBO Documentary Films hired to vet the movie (160). …
... Gibney had an excellent blueprint to work from in Lawrence Wright’s exhaustively researched 2013 nonfiction bestseller (from which the film takes its title), but he’s also added much fascinating material here, including new interviews and proprietary Scientology video footage that has to be seen to be disbelieved. … At the heart of it all, Gibney has made a great film …
... this impeccably assembled and argued film represents a brave, timely intervention into debates around the organization that have been simmering for some time. … the film is an accessible, one-stop shop that will comprehensively counter apathy from viewers who might consider the organization nothing more than a bunch of harmless kooks who believe in mumbo jumbo about intergalactic overlord Xenu and volcanoes. … In the end, the main point of this deeply admirable documentary is to reach and enlighten that broader audience in a way that far too many publications and media outlets have been afraid to do. … survivors, "suppressive persons" and the "disconnected" families of people who have suffered from Scientology's unholy war against its enemies will take enormous comfort in the fact that at least one film has now dared to say what only a few years ago seemed impossible.
8 p.m. Sunday. HBO.
