User Reviews

This was a very good Documentary in what is becoming a very crowded Cult Documentary genre. It is always sad how people start out with an idealistic vision of the World and how people should live, and somehow it always gets corrupted along the way. The Film Maker really did an exceptional job walking the viewer through the history of Synanon and how her perspective and feelings about living and being part of this movement as a child changed over time. Her Parents and many of the Synanon Members, both former addicts and not, really seemed like decent people. It's too bad a non-Cult hasn't taken the place of this organization to provide a lifeline to the ever growing number of drug addicts today.

It remains a Mystery why people enjoyed playing the Synanon Game (which does not look like much fun), or why Utopian Communities always fail. Perhaps topics for a future documentary!

Worth Watching!

I really appreciated this show. I felt that they tackled the subject quite fairly, and compassionately. I liked that they interviewed people with both positive and negative experiences. I loved the evolving conversations between mother and daughter. The inside footage is quite frankly, chilling sometimes, but it was good to see that. My husband and I have been talking about it for days because of our personal experiences.

I think it is hard to understand how being in a deeply controlling environment changes your thinking and decision making. I grew up, not in a cult like this, but in a religion where my life was very controlled. Meetings three times a week, your life course planned out for you from childhood etc. Strangely enough, they kept telling you that you had more freedom than people out in the world around you, and you believed them. Your life goal is to work to advance "the organization", as we called it. Very similar M. O. of keeping you in the group by telling you that you were part of creating a new society with no racism and no class division and using the fact that you made a life commitment to guilt you into staying. On the surface, it sounds great, but it wasn't really. If you leave, you lose everything. That being said, once you leave and spend some time unpacking the baggage, your life improves.

I am deeply grateful that people are making documentaries like this. People need to see these things. This show will help others who did not grow up this way to understand those who did.

I grew up in The South Bay Area of L. A. County. From the time I was 16-18 years old (1969-1971), coming home from surf trips, or going to Santa Monica and Venice Beach I'd see the large building south of the pier with the Synanon sign. It was very mysterious. All I knew then was that it was for drug addicts. Though I followed subsequent news, much was still unclear about it. This doc filled that in. I watched all 4 hours straight through. Very interesting and well worth watching. Great interviews with former Synanon folk, and a compelling story of the filmmaker's journey making this documentary.