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Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics poster

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (2020)

Celebrities recall their most mind-bending trips via animations, reenactments and more in this comedic documentary exploring the story of psychedelics.
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4.2 / 5
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Incluvie Movie Reviews


Incluvie Writer
October 18, 2021
4 / 5
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4.5 / 5
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Have a Good Trip: Netflix Takes You on an Adventure Into the Reality of Psychedelics

“Just say no.” This was the anthem of the War on Drugs movement of the 1980s. It quickly and quietly shut down research into psychedelics, and was largely propagated by misinformation. Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, a new Netflix documentary written and directed by Donick Cary, delves into the reality of psychedelics. It features stories from comedians and celebrities about the respective psychedelic trips they’ve taken. This includes Sting, Sarah Silverman, Lewis Black, Anthony Bourdain, Carrie Fisher, Rosie Perez, A$ap Rocky, among an array of others. What makes this film fascinating is the direction it fundamentally takes. Interwoven are testimonials that are brought to life with a multitude of animation styles. When I first saw the animation in Sting’s story, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. As the film progresses, however, I saw more of the different kinds of animation, and I came to really appreciate how it enhances the narrative. Cary expertly knows how to break up the film in order to keep it engaging. Not only does the style of animation change from person to person, but some of the testimonials involve live-action reenactments that I found to be hysterical. While the material is interesting enough on its own, the film is heightened by its keen sense of humor. There has to be a sense of humor when discussing some of these stories, and Cary knows how to capitalize on that with dramatizations, specific cuts, and side stories. Have a Good Trip offers a rather balanced look at psychedelic use. While its main narrative is the stories of recreational use by celebrities, it does delve into the medical history of psychedelics and its use in psychotherapy. In the 1960s, psychologists were looking at the benefits that controlled LSD use had for people struggling with mental disorders. They found that it helped alleviate anxiety in people suffering from terminal cancer, alcoholism, opioid use, and depression. However, these tests were shut down when the United States government made psychedelics illegal in 1968. To help convey this, the film interweaves different segments within the main testimonials. There is a pseudo-Bill Nye segment with Nick Offerman debunking some misconceptions surrounding psychedelics, while simultaneously offering some of Offerman’s signature dry humor. There’s also a fantastic reoccurring segment called “Bad Trip” with Adam Scott, who plays an exaggerated host of an 80s infomercial preaching against drug use. This involves a storyline about a group of teenagers at a party who take acid and proceed to jump out windows. These scenes are some of the best parts of the film. Not only are they absolutely hilarious, but they nicely break up the pacing of the testimonials. Adam Scott is fantastic playing this deliberately contrived host. As with most of the side segments, “Bad Trip” is used for the deliberate purpose of reinforcing the larger concept of the film: destigmatizing psychedelics so that we can talk about them without the added baggage that surrounds them. It satirizes the afterschool specials that many kids in the 80s grew up watching; spotlighting how these videos created a caricatured perception of psychedelics to counter the counterculture. One thing the documentary doesn’t go into as much as I would have liked is more of the psychology of psychedelics, and what actually happens to the brain while on these drugs. For a deeper dive into that, I would recommend watching another original series on Netflix, The Mind, Explained. The final episode in this miniseries goes into psychedelics and does a really good job of covering more of the neuroscience behind it. Have a Good Trip
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Movie Information


Celebrities recall their most mind-bending trips via animations, reenactments and more in this comedic documentary exploring the story of psychedelics.

Rating:
Genre:Documentary
Directed By:Donick Cary
Written By:Donick Cary
In Theaters:5/11/2020
Box Office:

Runtime:85 minutes
Studio:

Cast


Director

Donick Cary

Director

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cast

Nick Offerman

Self

cast

Sarah Silverman

Self

cast

Adam Scott

Self

cast

Rosie Perez

Self

cast

Adam Horovitz

Self

cast

A$AP Rocky

Himself

cast

Anthony Bourdain

Self (archive footage)

cast

Ben Stiller

Self

cast

Bill Kreutzmann

Self

cast

Carrie Fisher

Self

cast

Natasha Lyonne

Self