Call Me Miss Cleo

Relying heavily on talking heads and complementing a seeming lack of primary archival footage with ambiguous reenactments, this documentary feels targeted at a very niche audience. For those who closely followed the Psychic Readers Network or its biggest star, Call Me Miss Cleo may offer some insights -- particularly about Miss Cleo's later years after a lawsuit sent her into hiding, and a public recognition of her sexuality and advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights brought her back out. But commentary from friends and coworkers feels a little too defensive, like the film exists to salvage this person's reputation rather than to consider all sides to her. "I don't want her to be a cliché," a former lover says, seemingly encapsulating the documentary's purpose. Even interviewees and an investigative journalist who questions Miss Cleo's actions and authenticity seem to come around at the end to a more sympathetic view, undermining much of the documentary's setup.

The film is organized in sections based on quite a large number of interviews. Former staffers of the Psychic Readers Network talk about the unethical work they were hired but not trained to do for the profitable call-in business. (Early explanations of how 1-800 numbers worked and many re-created scenarios involving old landline phones are fun for the older crowd.) A discussion among Black women about what Miss Cleo represented, as a Black female celebrity with a Caribbean identity who later came out publicly as a lesbian, is certainly the most interesting part of this documentary. The least compelling aspect, curiously, is her friends and lovers from later life. The film seems to struggle to create engaging visuals as it transitions between talking heads, but when it cuts repeatedly to an out-of-focus rendition of Miss Cleo (perpetually lighting candles or sage), reenactments of network employees receiving calls, empty theater seats and twisted tree trunks, the images feel extraneous rather than symbolic or thought-provoking.