THE SECRET ART OF HUMAN FLIGHT– 3 STARS

There’s a very telling exchange about a third of the way through The Secret Art of Human Flight that illustrates the thematic teeter-totter happening between quirky pragmatism and risky behavior. Book author Ben Grady (Grant Rosenmeyer of Come As You Are) has hermetically been staying at home despondent with grief after the sudden and unexplained death of this wife Sarah (Brockmire’s Reina Hardesty), when one of his wife’s friends Wendy (Fear the Walking Dead and Lost star Maggie Grace) comes over offering a brambleberry pie, her personal favorite. Ben knows Wendy lost her own husband several years ago and has since remarried. She wasn’t hoping to stay, but Ben talks her into sharing a slice for chat. 

Compared to his smothering and worry-wort sister Gloria (Lucy DeVito, recently seen in Marvelous and the Black Hole next to her mother Rhea Perlman), Wendy is an approachable person Ben feels he can talk to, especially since she has gone through the same catastrophic mourning. As they eat, Wendy sizes up Ben’s situation. Pulling from Jesse Orenshein’s debut script, here’s their exchange.

Wendy: “You can’t sleep, ‘cause if you do, you dream of them. And then you’re every more exhausted.”

Ben, with a slight smile: “Check”

Wendy: “You feel like you’re starting back at square one, even though it took you 20 years to get where you are.”

Ben, smiling more: “Double Check”.

Wendy: “You hate that everyone treats you like a wounded hummingbird…”

Ben, while chewing more pie, nonverbally smiles and gestures in agreement

Wendy (continuing): “…and you found something insane to keep you occupied.”

Ben pauses his chewing, his smile shrinks, and he looks off out the porch window.

Wendy, bringing her eye contact back to Ben: “You can’t tell anybody because it’s insane.”

Ben, trying to change the subject, replies: “How did you get out of bed after your husband died?”

LESSON #1: FINDING SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS YOUR PAIN– Wendy, barely a casual acquaintance in his life, has completely read Ben to a T. At the beginning of their conversation over pie, there is a sense of surprise and relief shown in Ben. Someone who is honest and empathetic instead of pushy understands exactly what he’s going through. Being able to talk in such a safe space was liberating for Ben. Yet, that last postulation from Wendy of “You can’t tell anybody because it’s insane” freezes him slightly and hits a slight nerve of sensitivity and frankness.

He doesn’t share with Wendy what he’s been up to but we, the audience of The Secret Art of Human Flight, know darn well what recent activities of Ben match that “insane” label. On one particularly low-esteem night, Ben ventured down a dark web internet rabbit hole after seeing a YouTube video of a self-help guru named Mealworm (Sound of Metal Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Paul Raci) who demonstrated his brand of renewed focus and self-belief that was strong enough for him to physically fly into the air when he lept off a cliff. Inspired by the wonder and telling no one, Ben drops several thousand dollars for Mealworm’s personalized five-chapter “flight handbook.” Mealworm’s program is specifically what Ben’s been up to and hiding from his neighbors, friends, and sister. 

LESSON #2: THE POWER OF LIFE COACHES AND GURUS– Anyone who’s been pulled into a late-night TV infomercial or extended YouTube ad knows what kind of figure Mealworm represents in The Secret Art of Human Flight. Across the topics of faith, health, financial success, dating, or anything in between, the right guru and the right approach can talk folks into just about anything. However, one man’s snake oil-pouring con man is another man’s enlightened leader of prophecy. Convincing statements sound like motivating totems and vice versa, all requiring high levels of faith and commitment in order for the promises to come true. In this film’s case of playing with this archetype, the reward of Mealworm is labeled “existential sacrifice.”

LESSON #3: SOMETHING INSANE TO KEEP DISTRESSED MIND OCCUPIED– Not long into Ben’s headfirst dive into Mealworm’s handwritten and leatherbound manual and that key candid conversation with Wendy, Mealworm himself arrives at Ben’s doorstep to stay with him and assist him on his journey, which includes scaffolded mental exercises, physical challenges, and steps to purge his home of unnatural and immaterial distractions and possessions. The obvious insanity seen by Ben’s people is believing the schemes of this mysterious man living out of a Winnebago parked outside of Ben’s house, but the darker notions are the aforementioned sacrificial prospects and the preparation of jumping off high places to “fly.” Those precarious goals can just as easily be instructions for assisted suicide louder than any typical cry for help.

The Secret Art of Human Flight hovers on perilous edges with this premise and its trappings, shot in a claustrophobic Academy ratio by cinematographer Markus Mentzer (I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson). At many moments, there’s humor to be found in a bespectacled Ben getting whipped into airborne shape by Mealworm’s unorthodox methods for doing so. Grant Rosenmeyer and Paul Raci share several scenes of poignant soul-baring talks forming the character reclamation project taking place. Between the two, we don’t see a charlatan and a sucker, but two potential confidantes. Rosemeyer exudes an affable Everyman quality that earns sympathy and encouragement. Similarly, with the wrinkles of time experience chiseled into his face, Paul Raci’s range to morph facial expressions—from smiling to frowning—and postured positions in the frame can completely shift the mood of entire interactions and scenes to his whim. He plays a wonderful massager of hearts and minds softening the unanswered question marks of his enigmatic character.  

Nevertheless, Bitter Melon and Attack, Decay, Release director H.P. Mendoza paces The Secret Art of Human Flight to keep the guessing games of motives, true identities, and sustaining outcomes extended as long as possible. The narrative and its musical score deftly hop back and forth over a line between pain and happiness with its revealed secrets and choice of tones. The movie plays like a slowed-down training montage at times, and we can’t help but want to jog at its zen pace to see what happens. We long for the promise of whimsy to come true while admitting the dire that is still entirely possible. Achieving that very mystery, to blur between implications of brevity and danger, is precisely the reward to be found with this little indie movie experience.