Two digital sleuths set out to find the woman who lent her image to computer software in this scattered documentary.
Upon the release of the 2017 podcast “Missing Richard Simmons,” the host Dan Taberski said that he didn’t want to tell the story in a first-person documentary, because that sort of nonfiction film — the kind that stars the storyteller — is hard to pull off without it seeming self-indulgent.
In “Seeking Mavis Beacon,” another personal investigation into an erstwhile public figure, the director Jazmin Jones doesn’t even try to avoid the self-indulgence pitfall. She decks it out with candles and uses it as headquarters.
Scattered but amiable, the film centers on Jones and Olivia McKayla Ross as they set out to uncover the mysteries of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, a ’90s software program that featured a beaming Black woman on its packaging. Operating out of an atmospheric office lined with trinkets, the duo follow a loose, makeshift plan: analyze Mavis Beacon’s legacy as a Black digital assistant, and interview the woman who portrayed her, named Renée L’Espérance.
The former of these ambitions soon proves a more revealing and productive use of time. L’Espérance is elusive, and the duo’s quixotic efforts to locate her lapse into seances and tarot readings. (LexisNexis is a better bet.)
“Seeking Mavis Beacon” still goes down smoothly, at least until its conclusion; while other films tie up too neatly, this one could use a bow at all. It helps that Jones and Ross are clever and likable guides — come to think of it, they would have made excellent podcast hosts.
Seeking Mavis Beacon
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
