In the opening montage of the faux-documentary Group: The Schopenhauer Effect, various New Yorkers walk to the Group session, heeding their inner voices, which are ambivalent, argumentative, insecure, and so on. Once in the room, under their therapist’s guidance, they express their turmoil and, in doing so, help each other. The Group rules are simple: what’s said in Group stays in Group, and the participants can’t meet separately outside the office. It’s a closed unit and an effective form of therapy. The film is based on a successful web series that chronicles the fictitious practice of real-life psychoanalyst Dr. Elliot Zeisel.
The conceit of the film has the participants returning from Covid’s limbo of Zoom. They meet weekly and are happy to be back in person. A new member creates a disturbance: Alexis, a filmmaker who wants to observe the Group as research for an upcoming project. He’s been convinced by Dr. Zeisel to join and commit for real. His presence throws the balance off. The others object, fearing he’ll mine their serious purpose for trivial entertainment. They are wary of him until he proposes a plan that will encourage them all to make real therapeutic progress.
Sounds dry, I know, but fans of Showtime’s Couples Therapy, HBO’s In Treatment, and even Netflix’s Love is Blind (once they leave the pods) will find much to enjoy. First, there’s the buzz of identification (from common issues and skirting mental ruts; Dr. Zeisel’s probing questions and jolting statements —“Trust is a red herring”— blasts oneself out of complacency), and the superiority that comes with the illusion of solving the troubles of others.
The ensemble is seasoned actors, and the film and series are scripted and improvised. Thomas Sadowski (of HBO’s The Newsroom) is Alexis, the surrogate of the film’s director Alexis Lloyd (30 Beats). The cast is rounded out by Lucy Walters, Teresa Avia Lim, Ezra Barnes, Bernardo Cubría, Gabriela Kohen, Elisha Lawson, and Cara Ronzetti, all giving empathetic performances. The characters, even the disagreeable ones, become familiar quickly.
The mise-en-scène blurs the line between reality and fiction. It’s lots of close-ups by a handheld camera in a room. Yet Mr. Lloyd makes it compelling (my online screener kept bugging out, making me frantic to rejoin). I wonder how Group: The Schopenhauer Effect will play out on the big screen, given its YouTube roots. Watched on a phone or laptop, the segments put the viewer in the Group as well, producing an intimacy that could be lost when expanded. The conversion to a feature film also freezes the premise, making it a one-off rather than a reliable ongoing series. But the actors are appealing, and the insights edifying. We are sad when our time is up.
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Group: The Schopenhauer Effect. Directed by Alexis Lloyd. 2026. From Abramorama. Runtime 119 minutes.