‘Stutz’, a new Netflix documentary film directed by and starring Jonah Hill, features frank discussions about mental health between a patient, Jonah himself, and his therapist, Dr Phil Stutz.
The heartfelt and powerful documentary is an honest and intimate look at men’s mental health, featuring candid conversations, genuine vulnerability, sprinkled with humour throughout.
In the film, which is almost like a real-life therapy session, the actor and director talks about his complicated relationship with fame, personal traumas, and his mental health struggles, which he says have become progressively worse due to the nature of his work and the public scrutiny which seems to go hand in hand with it.
Throughout the 90-minute film, Stutz, the therapist Hill credits with changing his life, talks through the treatment and mental tools he offers his patients to help them to lead happier lives and emerge from depths of depression or anxiety.
The empowering technique known simply as “The Tools” are essentially visualisation exercises that help to change a person’s inner state by taking unpleasant experiences, thoughts and problems and transforming them into possibilities and opportunities, leading to newly improved confidence which Stutz says, aids them in reaching their true potential.
In Stutz, Hill says that he wants to share the tools he learned in therapy with as many people as possible through the medium of film.
Hill says, “Therapy changed my life. And I’m hoping that by doing this film, it can change other people’s lives. I think if therapy was like universal healthcare and if every American had access to it, the country would be in a much, much better place”
In the documentary, Hill also encourages the former prison therapist to tell his own story, to which Stutz obliges and reveals his own traumatic experiences which resulted in him getting stuck in a rut and left unable to get out of bed for years.
Jonah says his life has improved drastically since working with Stutz, and he hopes that by introducing him to a wider audience, his methods can offer tangible steps towards better mental well-being, especially in cases where therapy may be inaccessible due to the costs.
Hill said: “I have finished directing my second film, a documentary about me and my therapist which explores mental health in general called “Stutz.” The whole purpose of making this film is to give therapy and the tools I’ve learned in therapy to a wide audience for private use through an entertaining film. ….With“Stutz,” I’m hoping to make it more normal for people to talk and act on this stuff. So they can take steps towards feeling better and so that the people in their lives might understand their issues more clearly”
Watch the trailer here:
‘Stutz’ is available to watch on Netflix now.
