ReelBob: ‘Clairevoyant’ ★★

A mockumentary about a young woman's search for spirituality that needed a sharper satiric edge to make its point.

In the mockumentary “Clairevoyant,” the writer-director team of Micaela Wittman and Arthur De Larroche take aim at so-called new-age panaceas that people use as crutches to make themselves believe they are improving their lives and helping the world.

Wittman stars as Claire, a clueless 20-something young socialite who hires a filmmaker to chronicle her quest for spirituality.

Claire is insipid, a spoiled woman supported by her rich father who makes stupid statements such as “Money literally grows on trees” and considers self-help author Tony Robbins her spiritual guru.

Wittman and De Larroche, while mining their premise for a lot of humor, fail to create any real laughs. That’s because “Clairevoyant” mostly consists of various conversations between Claire and the many people with whom she interacts on her journey to self-enlightenment — her yoga instruction, a person at Native American center (which she thinks is Indian, as in southeast Asian India), a life coach, a psychic medium and other film-flam artists who spout cliches and bromides that Claire interprets as wisdom.

Claire is naïve. She knows nothing about the world or people. She is one of those people who seems to have been educated by reading articles on Google and other apps.

Wittman and De Larroche would have been better served if they gave Claire a dollop of common sense; allowed her to see through some of the nonsense these “experts” were spoon-feeding her.

Even at a bit under 90 minutes, “Clairevoyant” crawls along as Claire goes from one encounter to another. After a time, the movie begins to feel as if it is on a repeating loop.

The movie does a decent job deflating all the contemporary bullshit that these hucksters use to snare in emotionally vulnerable people, of which Claire is definitely one.

The problem is that Wittman and De Larroche needed to sharpen their knives to make their satire more cutting.

Plus, the film takes a tonal shift in its last several minutes when Claire, after a disastrous confrontation with her well-meaning mother and experiencing a bad trip after taking an unspecified drug, realizes her search has been for naught.

At one point Claire says she is seeking happiness because “I just don’t want to be sad.”

Well, who does?

In the end, Claire offers a moral to her story. People, she says, need to find their own answers about life.

True, but that revelation seems very obvious after all she has shown us.

“Clairevoyant” has some quirky and laughable moments, but there are inconsistent and not honed enough to make any real impact.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom and on Facebook at ReelBob.com or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

CLAIREVOYANT
2 stars out of 4
Not rated, language, drug use