‘Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time’ Review: The Well-Versed Documentary Lacks The Subject’s Witty Creativity

“Listen” a voiceover says as a puff of smoke fills a black screen. Borrowed from the first chapter of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s most well-known novel ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’, Robert B. Weide and Don Argott’s documentary ‘Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time’ is well versed in the iconography of its subject. Unfortunately, the film lacks the author’s witty creativity. The voiceover continues, “we don’t understand the first thing about time.” What follows is a mostly linear greatest hits look at the life and work of one of the 20th century’s most unique literary voices.  

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Along with its very paint by numbers accounting of the rise of Vonnegut’s literary career and personal life, the film hitches itself to Vonnegut’s 25-year friendship with co-director and writer Robert B. Weide (‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’). Like Nora Ephron’s Julia Child biopic ‘Julie & Julia’, your mileage may vary when the doc leans into Weide’s life and Vonnegut’s reactions to events within it. One major ethos of Vonnegut was the importance of extended family. While the documentary does a great job of showing why this was so important to the writer and how he lived it through adopting his late-sister Alice’s four boys, it does a poor job of using this theme to make viewers care about the detours into Weide’s life. 

While this tenuous connection often does not work, Weide’s deep friendship with Vonnegut did produce hours of footage of the author over the 25 years they knew each other. These include fascinating footage of Vonnegut with his brother, famed atmospheric scientist Bernard Vonnegut, on a train ride. Seeing the brothers Vonnegut in contrast with each other—Kurt with his wry smile and loose demeanor, Bernard a sympathetic stuffed shirt—makes you wish the documentary were about their twin careers instead. 

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Weide and Vonnegut also visit the writer’s childhood home in Indiana. Built by his architect father, the family lost the home during the Great Depression. Footage of Vonnegut as he touches cement handprints made by his siblings is contrasted with him saying he didn’t mind leaving the house as a boy because “life was pretty interesting” wherever they lived. These moments shed insight into his complex outlook on life. As does the 16mm home video footage Weide received from Bernard. Vonnegut often said he wrote his stories with his sister Alice in mind, and here we see his unguarded joy around her and the deep bond they shared. 

Besides the home movies and footage of Vonnegut visiting places where he grew up, Weide and Argott interview biographers who add context to his career, including his work at G.E. with his brother, when he begins writing short stories, and eventually unexpectedly hits it big with his sixth novel, 1969’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five.’ Also mixed in are interviews with his son, two daughters, and the four nephews he adopted after their parents’ death. Thanks to their frank depictions of the author’s terrifying moodiness the doc avoids becoming hagiography. Especially as it looks at the tireless work his first wife, Jane, did for his career, only to be discarded after he became famous. 

It took Vonnegut nearly 25 years to write ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ an account of his time during the firebombing of Dresden. The most harrowing sequence in the two-hour doc comes while Vonnegut visits his old public high school. There’s a plaque dedicated to all the students who died during WWII; Vonnegut matter of factly states he knew one out ten of those classmates. As he walks through the hallway we hear him say, “The second world war was fought by children. The movies give the impression that war is fought by middle-aged men. It’s startling how young soldiers are.” This is followed by a smash cut into footage of WWII narrated by a speech in which Vonnegut describes the horrors he witnessed, interspersed with a photo of him in uniform looking impossibly young. 

But unlike the smooth transition from horror to comedy to science fiction that marks the genius of his most famous work, the doc struggles to balance these darker elements within the narrative of Vonnegut’s life. Using an exploration of the novel’s iconic “so it goes” to move past Dresden, the doc trudges on through the rest of Vonnegut’s life following a rather basic structure, only occasionally dipping back through time to illuminate the present. 

Although the mixed media use of animation, archival footage, and intimate talking heads provides a rich tapestry on which to weave Vonnegut’s story, by intertwining his life with filmmaker Weide’s life the documentary begins to feel its two-hour-plus runtime. With a subject this interesting, more time could have been spent going deeper into Vonnegut’s impact on literature. While there’s no doubt that this friendship with Vonnegut deeply shaped Weide’s life, these detours often feel self-serving rather than illuminating. Hearing voicemails Vonnegut left on Weide’s answering machine decades ago somehow feels creepier than excerpts from a dead person’s private letters.

If, as the documentary says early on, Vonnegut was one of the few writers of whom every one of his books remains in print, wouldn’t it be worth exploring why his work still resonates with new generations? That’s one of the major questions left unanswered by ‘Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time.’ As a biography, the documentary is thoroughly researched and beautifully edited. Die-hard fans will enjoy the rare footage of their hero. But by both hinging the film on Weide’s friendship, and ignoring the why behind Vonnegut’s continued legacy, by the end it all feels a bit hollow. [C+]

“Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time” is available in select theaters and on VOD now.