LOS ANGLES — The lauded documentary "Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life" by Tomer Heymann has received praise from the New York Times.
The doc profiling the now-retired gay adult star is playing at the Village East by Angelika in New York through Thursday, with a one-week run at the Laemmle Glendale in Los Angeles, May 20-26.
The director finds "idiosyncratic insights within typical narrative beats about fame and power — two mercurial things that, for the film and Agassi himself, don’t exist in a vacuum," said reviewer Kyle Turner. "Heymann situates the notion of celebrity in the context of not just performance and gay culture but also familial intimacy, with striking detail."
Heymann achieves "an impressive level of formal closeness with its subject while maintaining a critical distance from him, following his personal moments closely without over-sentimentalizing interactions," observed Turner. "The film mostly abstains from judgment."
Find the New York Times review here; the film currently holds a 100% RottenTomatoes "Fresh" score among critics.
Follow the Instagram profile for "Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life" here.
Read XBIZ's coverage of the film here.
Image: Heymann Brothers Films
