Dosed: The Trip of a Lifetime (2023) Film Review
The best thing about documentary feature Dosed: The Trip of a Lifetime, is that it never poses as a business card for the theme it portrays. It’s not a promotion piece by which many people would be confused and possibly reject it. This is a story of resilience expressed through a dramatic and controversial channel of alternative medicine, but it’s sober enough to actually make you open your mind. Modern documentaries tend to indoctrinate a bit, but fortunately this time it simply doesn’t happen. A life simply changes and we see it all through the eyes of a brave woman whose acts are out of love.
The subject, Laurie Brooks, is aware of the world she’s cautiously entering. She’s a joyful mother and wife whose cancer diagnosis turned her life around. Life expectancy is relatively low. She wishes there would be a cure. Her smile represents optimism in the middle of chaos.
However, she’s realistic enough to understand miracles don’t happen. At least, to everybody. Religion isn’t a resource she’s willing to appeal to, but the love she feels for everything surrounding her is impressively strong. She knows she has to try something. But to what end, exactly? Dosed isn’t a film about a miraculous cure or about the genius minds that every day fight to find a cure for cancer. This is the story of one woman who decided to face death with a tool that unfortunately the world hasn’t widely considered.
This is how Laurie decides to make her last days better. She goes for mushroom therapy, consisting of consuming the magic thingies that grow in the soil. The component is psilocybin, and Laurie receives and exemption from the government to use what’s mostly forbidden. The environment is controlled. Our curiosity grows.
Needless to say, Laurie sees something during her trip. This is included in the film by directors Nicholas Meyers and Tyler Chandler who are allowed by Brooks to tell her whole story, as absurd as the result of her journey seems like. Animation sequences resembling a 70s cinema’s psychedelic scene are only the beginning.
Again, this isn’t a cure per se. Laurie’s intention is to try whatever’s at hand to reduce the anxiety that possibly caused her cancer in the first place. In this universal message, Dosed is irreverently important and holds no limits when implying a cause that could questionable. Nevertheless, in the hands of Laurie everything is for the best.
This brings the film towards its expected ending. This isn’t a miraculous film, or a manipulative documentary that’s trying to sell the idea of drug legalization. But its story is interesting enough to spark a debate about the role of alternative medicine in today’s society. At the very least, it should make you ask yourself and others what we can do to make our world a little better. Laurie does and in the conclusion of her life, she suddenly decides to fight no more and embrace fate. Not without the companion of substances that could easily improve her life. If you think this is an extraordinary series of events, then you’re not alone. I thought the same with that overall optimistic final scene in which Laurie may actually be beating her enemy.
