'Look Into My Eyes' Review: Complex Profile of New York Psychics

At the beginning of Lana Wilson’s documentary about psychics “Look Into My Eyes,” a gray New York sky hangs over a nondescript building. A modest yellow glow comes from a high-story window. Inside, a woman begins to tell someone off-camera about the tragic death of a little girl, something she’s held tightly to herself for 20 years. There’s one question that still needs answering. How is she?

Wilson returns to that shot of the building’s exterior at the end of the film, having witnessed several more interactions and met a handful of these psychics, many of whom carry their own unresolved pains. But by the end, the image somehow seems different: That illuminated window against the big, harsh, anxious city conveys a hopeful warmth. It seems comforting.

It’s natural for someone to approach “Look Into My Eyes” as a skeptic, because one is human. The world of clairvoyance is strange and suspicious, and we love doctors who pull back the curtain. But what’s also universal in these years of global trauma is the need to address what ails us, and it’s this perspective that informs Wilson’s approach, the same one that graced his previous documentaries “After Tiller,” about doctors who perform abortions, and “The Departure,” about a monk mired in confusion.

Something funny and touching emerges from Wilson's close, considered and not unskeptic meeting with a diverse handful of New York psychics who offer their wares and live their lives. One comes away believing, not in paranormal powers or some mystical gift, but in the modest basics of communication. These occult transactions of faith and performance offer, in their own way, a kind of solace.

Wilson’s mode of observation is respectful, the multi-camera setup focusing on quiet exchanges, awkward at first, as if they’re capturing an important interview in which subject and questioner are of equal rank. Clients’ faces wear nervous smiles as they ask a question or wait for one, or receive a statement from a spiritual presence. Psychics also betray their own apprehension as things occur to them. Will it stir an emotion, bring them closer to the source of pain? Or will it go awry? It feels like a first dance, where both parties want to avoid stepping on each other’s heels or actively lead, but they find a rhythm that matches the music and, most importantly, feels right.

Exchanges often feel like attempts to be heard, with all you're looking for is a kind, sensible word from the friendly face in front of you. An adopted person wants details about the Chinese birth parents who abandoned her (they were greedy; being adopted can be hard). A tense woman worries that her defiant dog won't like her (he senses that concern; calm down). A young black man obsesses about having learned about the price of slavery from his ancestor (focus on defining your own freedom).

That relief works both ways, though. The psychics’ own stories of heartbreak and loneliness (unsurprisingly, almost all are former or still-aspiring actors) invariably color the kind of healing messages they give: that a person is unique, that no one can change the past, that a lost loved one comes to terms with it, that recognition is just around the corner. The lives of some of the psychics seem, frankly, precarious, and at a certain point we realize, rather poignantly, that in these sessions, they are reassuring themselves as much as their clients.

In interviews, Wilson can be heard off-camera, delicately probing: Is this essentially improvisation? His answers are not defensive: psychics rely on a good-natured confidence in not knowing exactly what is going on, but that something is going on. As one of them adds: “If it resonates, it doesn’t really matter.”

Human connections are gifts, imagination is powerful, and empathy is no trick. These are the things that “Look Into My Eyes” patiently communicates to us from its watchful perch. What these independent healers do may not be professional therapy, but the intimate, sensitive outlet on display in Wilson’s compassionate documentary (one of the year’s best) allows us to set aside our mistrust to consider what can be deeply felt from an accepted simulation between willing and receptive souls.