In Bright Axiom

What a human being really needs is: 1. 4 or 5 close friends who care about you and good enough. 2. a spouse who is loving and good enough. 3. a job that is good enough. 4. a hobby like playing the drums or a book club.

If you don't work on the above, then you'll find yourself going in to a pink room, holding on to two balls, while a giant plaster face tells you the next clues in a lame treasure hunt.

If you're curious whether or not this movie is any good, please note over on Rotten Tomatoes, this fil has a 76% Tomatometer rating and an Audience score of 80%. Neither rating is bad.

But over here, we have a bunch of reviewers whining about how the people in the movie who have faced difficulties in life are "weird." One reviewer said, "A group of 'artists' who seemed like folks on the social fringe: mental issues, self esteem issues, the kind of people ONLY others like them would even bother with...cause they were all so weird and out there." Guess what? Weird artists like that are behind every form of entertainment you enjoy.

This is obviously a mockumentary because the film's special effects blend in with the supposed reality. This is hard to explain unless you see the movie, but suffice to say the interesting experiences this "secret order" puts its initiates through would not be nearly as immersive if the director wasn't using special effects to enhance the experience. For example, there is a scene where someone opens a book of blank pages and suddenly there is an animated story superimposed with special effects and a voice over narration. Obviously, this was done by the filmmaker, which means that none of that actually happened in reality. This means the whole scene is basically bogus: the prop designers created the interesting environment, but it was only finished when the special effects were added in the movie. That means the initiate was just sitting there in a cool-looking room looking at blank pages. Pretty funny oversight if they were trying to actually fool anyone.

But, the idea of the film is pretty well done overall and is a really interesting concept. If it was actually real and the film was just a document of it, that would have been a really interesting film about a really interesting group. Most people would be too freaked out to even get past the first test, which would make it a fairly elite secret society in a certain way. However, since it's just completely fake, I find it less interesting and can't give it more than a 5.

So apparently american culture has created a disjointed society which in turn has produced enough lonely and bored people, desperate for connection and meaningful experiences, that their needs could be capitalized on by a company providing a secret society or -depending on how you look at it- "cult" experience. Art is essential, so is a sense of belonging and good intentions are laudable, still I cannot help but feel perturbed by the fact that someone came up with this idea and others bought into it.

Close to the end of In Bright Axiom, my mother asks me if what shes watching is about a real thing and if it's still alive, I answer simply 'it was in 2015' because I know the difference between In Bright's fiction and the reality that people thought it was real but when someone has experienced a member of their family devoting themselves to a cult they think that what they are watching (i.e In Bright Axiom) is about a cult because the line between Fiction and Reality was so blurred that to the participants thought the fiction was their reality and in some sense it was real to the creator but in the end it was something that the creator Jeff tried to turn into a real sustainable thing but didnt work out. For those who will try to watch In Bright Axiom after seeing this review keep this question in your mind 'what is real and what isn't' and maybe you'll understand their mindset

This mockumentary shows us how absolute desperate some individuals (read millennials) are to feel part of something. Something big. And important. While remaining on the fringe because they're edgy.

It was semi unbearable to listen to some of the blatherings in the confessional interviews.

Someone decided to string random words together and create a mock religion and pretend to chase self important and easily manipulated characters into thinking they were chosen.

I hope the people were all in on the joke. Bright axiom and high pretensioness.

I'm not sure I can watch it all. Does everyone involved in this get the gag? The con?