BFI London Film Fest Review: Louis Theroux Takes On Xenu With Documentary ‘My Scientology Movie’

Probably because it’s completely barking mad, we seem to be endlessly fascinated by Scientology. The religion/cult, discovered/made up by sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard, has been the subject of endless speculation in its half-century history, partly thanks to its secretive nature. But despite it counting a number of major movie stars among its ranks (or more likely, because of that fact), cinematic investigations of Hubbard’s creation had mostly been limited to John Travolta’s propaganda movie flop “Battlefield Earth.”

But things have changed of late. Paul Thomas Anderson’s thinly-veiled story of the founding of the religion, “The Master,” was followed within a couple of years by Alex Gibney’s scintillating exposé documentary, “Going Clear,” which was released earlier this year. Now, we get another non-fiction examination of the phenomenon, with John Dower’s “My Scientology Movie,” fronted by the well-known British journalist/presenter Louis Theroux and produced by...