In the opening scene of the Hulu documentary Look at Me: XXXTentacion, we see a video of the late Jahseh Onfroy at 19. An explosive musician, he was known for blending elements of punk, R&B, and metal as the artist XXXTentacion. This early glimpse of his life is one of the many moments that are now forever frozen in time after he was killed in 2018 at the age of 20. We hear him talk about how his favorite Disney character is the blue alien Stitch, complete with a stuffed animal that he holds up for us to see. It then cuts to him frankly discussing his internal strife followed by a pledge of how he is hoping to turn a corner in his life after making many mistakes.
It is a change he would never get the chance to fully make.
The documentary is a look back through time that is multilayered in how grapples with the complicated mourning of his passing, while also grieving for the person he could have been who didn’t continue to hurt others. We see him grow as a famous artist who meant a lot to people that also had a darkness in him. Look at Me operates as a comprehensive biography that never falls into hagiography, unflinchingly showing all the flaws of the man behind the music. It is a film that has the courage to not take the easy way out of its story, serving as a portrait of a deeply troubled person, the pain he inflicted, and the future he was hoping to experience.
Look at Me is a painful watch, though this is very much by design as the truth would require nothing less. The entire experience is handled with both the grace and gravity required by director Sabaah Folayan, who occasionally interjects through interviews to ask rather tough yet still important questions. This is a vastly different story and approach than Folayan’s debut documentary, the incisive 2017 portrait of the people of Ferguson that was Whose Streets?. That prior work was constructed around on-the-ground camera work in a cinéma vérité style that prioritized observation above all else. This is more conventional, focusing on sit-down interviews with all the various people involved to hear their memories of the man they knew.
However, it still packs the same enduring intensity and compassion that Folayan brings with ease. Look at Me is also a film that is about the Internet. We see many moments where Onfroy speaks directly to the camera in livestreams or Instagram stories, revealing much about his state of mind in the years leading up to his death. He is at times charming and other times shockingly cruel, a complicated person that the documentary pulls back the layers of during its nearly two hours. The result lays bare all of who he was, delicately striking a balance that all too easily could have fallen apart in less assured hands. It never seeks to downplay or minimize the uglier aspects of his life, instead of confronting them head-on.
Much of this is due to how a large portion of it is devoted to hearing from Geneva Ayala, Onfroy’s former girlfriend. The two initially bonded over their shared struggles, though it soon becomes clear that he repeatedly abused her. We see photos of her injuries and hear how she had to escape, only to then be made an online target by Onfroy’s fans. In fact, we witness how the musician himself continued to cause harm. In an unreleased interview, he lies and demeans her. When he explodes in popularity following a stint in jail, Ayala goes the opposite direction. She is left with nothing, falling into poverty and homelessness while being constantly harassed over what happened. The way Folayan makes this completely central to the story is important to understanding the full picture of who he was. It wasn’t just the outward image he put forth, but who he was behind closed doors.
Our understanding of a person can’t just be limited to superficial adoration of their music as people are more complex than that, an element that the documentary never loses sight of. While there are some moments built around access that feel a bit extraneous to the journey we’re on, it doesn’t become an excuse for letting people off easy as it pushes deeper into its subject. The descent into the darker aspects of his life shows how there is a lot of self-harm and abuse, a reminder of just how bad things were beyond the videos he would post. Like his performances on stage, this was the image he put forth and a mask for all the more horrifying parts of his life that he was often responsible for.
The film trusts us to wrestle with all the hard truths it tells us, showing that its subject can hurt others and also be beloved. He can be a talented musician and have a violent past. He can struggle with his own mental health and wreak havoc on the lives of others who are also struggling with similar issues. Look at Me doesn't lionize him or put him on a pedestal, instead, showing how he was capable of good and bad. He can show kindness to those struggling and offer them support in one moment only to hurt them in another. People can be many things and Folayan doggedly pursues all of these aspects with the focus they deserve. In this process, each new depressing and infuriating piece of information pulls you in deeper. You just feel a sense of overwhelming sadness that it didn’t need to be this way. Insightful conversations with a therapist who begins to help are ones you wish came sooner.
The title of the film itself, drawing its name from the hit single that made him famous, feels particularly apt. We look at Onfroy, flaws and all. The phrase conveys desperation, a desire to be seen and understood. Folayan ensures we come about as close as possible to understanding him as anyone could, showing how broken he was without diminishing the way he broke others. When the documentary finds some degree of closure, it shows how long and hard the journey to reconciliation is for those that must move on without him. It isn't swayed by anything other than the truth as it crafts an uncompromising and steadfast deconstruction of whom the artist the world knew as XXXTentacion actually was. Moving beyond the headlines, it emerges as an absolutely essential piece of filmmaking.
Rating: A
Look at Me: XXXTentacion is now available to stream on Hulu.