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Harmontown is a documentary that follows Dan Harmon as he takes his popular podcast of the same name on a calamitous cross-country tour after he was fired from Community in 2012.
As much a portrait of a community as of its brilliant, de facto mayor, Harmontown is a stirring tribute to the restorative power of finding your people.
It's in the exploration of how "Community" fandom formed its own distinctive community of outcasts that the film excels, finally making sense of the show's cult popularity by diving into that cult and crowdsurfing on it.
I felt I had a better sense of the man, but the podcast element still eluded me. The live performances didn't seem that entertaining; luckily, the rest of the story was.
The final 20 minutes are the strongest, when Harmon comes to some realizations about his behavior. Unless you're the biggest of fans, you may find yourself wishing that the film had reached this point earlier.
Repeated praise of Mr. Harmon's nerdy fan base keeps emphasizing how appreciative its members are for his shining a light. Little splurts from an ingratiating score nudge us along.
The message at the heart of Harmontown shows how Harmon may have achieved certain goals, but the bigger challenge he still faces is learning to accept himself the way his audience and fans have accepted him.
[This] kind of honesty is the difference between sitcoms like Community and 30 Rock, which can be clever and amusing, and a truly brilliant, risk-taking show like Louie, which can be either hilariously funny or mortally depressing.