‘Instant Life’ Review: A24’s Sea Monkey Docuseries Is Instantly Forgettable [Sundance]

Most of us who grew up pouring over the pages of many a yellowed comic book of the mid-20th century will likely recall any number of unusual ads gracing the back cover of “Spider-Man” or “Detective Comics”; such ads touted the promise of pills that guaranteed heightened strength, home hypnosis kits and, perhaps most legendary, inexpensive toys ranging from the likes of the mighty X-Ray Specs to the admittedly ridiculous sea monkey phenomenon that somehow remain a tiny part of the pop culture lexicon to this day. Sea monkeys, the semi-subject of A24‘s docuseries “Instant Life,” from accomplished filmmakers, Mark Becker and Aaron Schock, are best seen as a chance for the unsuspecting public to fork over a small amount of funds for several packets filled with a series of proprietary formulas which, when mixed with an additional pouch containing some sort of egg concoction, produce living water-based insectoids that the artwork claims will resemble something of an extraterrestrial nuclear family appropriate of the era but instead ends up looking like scaled-down versions of the “Alien” facehugger.

As one might guess, said sea monkeys take a backseat in “Instant Life” to the story of Harold von Braunhut, the man who first brought these creatures into the limelight from a pet shop where they were originally intended as food for other, larger aquatic creatures, and his wife Yolanda, a former actress known for her roles in a series of early pseudo-pornographic films who found herself taken by the entrepreneur. Eventually, Yolanda teamed up with him in creating a business empire that would result in untold millions of dollars and a series of successful side ventures, which included the aforementioned X-Ray Specs as well as Invisible Goldfish.

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The 1823 poem “Don Juan” might be the first time that truth being stranger than fiction was uttered within the confines of the printed word, and the best documentaries are able to take a story that might lack a compelling narrative on the page or elsewhere and give it new life. Sadly, “Instant Life” lacks this ability, acting more like a slice-of-life style film in the same vein as 2020’s “Jasper Mall” as opposed to the David vs. Goliath battle the synopsis might suggest. Indeed, a portion of the doc does indeed revolve around Yolanda, now having taken over operations of the sea monkey line in the years since Harold’s passing, and her attempts to extract some money from a substantially larger toy company who now apparently owns the rights to the creatures and the other products that comprised the rest of their business. Unfortunately, the scenes that show this scuffle unfold dance between meandering talking head interviews with the various attorneys, accountants, and hired hands Yolanda has employed over the years, all of whom are owed thousands of dollars each by the lady herself, with endless shots of Yolanda going about her days at home in which the conditions have honestly become squalid as her funds have dwindled. Any fan of movies that show a depressed woman who could be somewhat mistaken for Carole Baskin feeding the various animals inhabiting the woods around her house while doing such thrilling tasks as going to the bank will find themselves completely at home as the time creeps from second to second. It’s about as exciting as a documentary about sea monkeys.

Speaking of 2020’s “Tiger King,” that docuseries does indeed serve as a perfect example of reality being far more entertaining than anything one could conjure up in the recesses of their mind. And the second part of this three-part series takes a bizarre turn in focusing on Harold’s involvement in the Aryan movement and a decidedly Nazi viewpoint, despite the fact that he was apparently Jewish himself. This, however, does little to accelerate the story of Yolanda’s war with the big bad world of toys and is instead a perplexing detour, in addition to a series of scenes at the beginning of Part 3 focusing on a young boy who’s training to become a magician and has received various injuries while rock climbing at a local gym. It’s perplexing to figure out what this child has to do with the film and it feels as if it was accidentally spliced in from an unrelated documentary about feral youth. That said, “Instant Life” does present the only instance in history of a sea monkey superfan discussing how he was uploading high-res scans of Invisible Goldfish advertisements before his interview began, which is a sentence I just typed.

While Yolanda is shown to be an overall harmless person who’s had to endure some sincere disappointment throughout her professional life, the pieces the filmmakers have tried to stitch together to create something worthwhile have instead given us the equivalent of a game show moment where behind door Number 3 isn’t the hope of a shiny new car but a tired bag of garbage. People ordered sea monkeys thinking they’d receive an amazing new companion, but like “Instant Life” itself, there wasn’t much there beyond a waste of time and effort. [C-]

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