Monrovia, Indiana

Director: Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman, Frederick Wiseman

2018 / 143min / DCP

Traveling to the Hoosier State, birthplace of Michaels Jackson and Pence, Wiseman lends his usual scrupulous attention to the sort of community that’s often given no attention at all, the population 1,063 village of Monrovia. Illustrating how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity, and authenticity are formed, experienced, and lived alongside conflicting stereotypes, Monrovia, Indiana offers a rich, nuanced view of daily rural life—and death, as in one funeral scene—which emerges through Wiseman’s sharp-eyed, careful cataloging of diner chit-chat, supermarket shifts, and town planning commission meetings. An incidental rebuttal to the pompous Hillbilly Elegy, which digs into the complexities of the “flyover” Midwest instead of offering broad-brush generalities.