Joe Leydon's review in Variety magazine (August 21, 2015) of the Matthew Stoneman documentary focuses predominately on a negative evaluation of the personality features of a man who presents, in this film, with several psychological symptoms that could be said to be characteristic of the autism syndrome. Matthew Stoneman is apparently not a warm and charismatic character. Nor does he seem to be capable of creating in-depth emotional relationships, his living style borders on messy chaos, at times even disgusting, and he is apparently incapable of executive tasks (his production costs are astronomical, his organization of his life sub-existential). The film is, however, a documentary about a man who is both a musical phenomena - true, weird and incapable in several emotional features - yet composes and sings music in the Son tradition of Cuba. And gathers together for his CD some amazing Cuban musicians and, as mentioned in the film, he sings like an angel. Leydon spends most of his time focusing on his distaste for the man's personality and seems to miss the point entirely when he then judges the film as lacking a classical Hollywood climax. His criticism runs just short of the type of mobbing that people like Stoneman meet as children on the school playground. If one can get beyond their likes or dislikes of personality characteristics and focus on the music, which is what Stoneman is exclusively about, then Stoneman is a phenomenal musician, with an exceptionally lovely voice and produces an exceptional CD with excellent Cuban musicians who judge him for his music and care little about his personality flaws.
