“Videoheaven” (2025), directed by Alex Ross Perry and narrated by Maya Hawke, is a three-hour video‑essay documentary exploring the cultural life and decline of video rental stores—from the indie mom-and-pops to Blockbuster giants and late-night seedy outlets, all through clips drawn from fiction and non-fiction cinema .
🎯 Craft & Structure
- Ambitious “video essay” format, echoing Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself. No talking-head interviews—Perry builds the narrative entirely through meticulously curated film, TV, commercial, and archival footage.
- 10 years in the making, it covers an enormous range—from mainstream Hollywood to obscure B‑movie fodder .
✨ Highlights
- Narration by Maya Hawke is subtly self-reflexive—her own role as a video-store clerk in Stranger Things is winked at without overt fan-service.
- Thematic richness: it reveals how video-store scenes in films shaped public perception, alternating between portraying them as welcoming social spaces and shady, guilt-laden dens (especially via adult-section tropes and clerk gatekeeper behavior).
- Clip pile‑ups—like multiple appearances by David Spade or the two I Am Legend adaptations—create associative, often poignant juxtapositions.
⚠️ Weak Points
- Length: at ~173 minutes, many critics felt it dragged—particularly sections on clerk‑shaming and stereotypes that overstay their welcome.
- Moments of reductiveness: occasionally films are flattened into mere settings—e.g., The Watermelon Woman is used mainly for its video-store backdrop rather than its deeper themes.
- Repetition: later chapters, such as those on clerks or late‑fees, sometimes reiterate familiar points without fresh insight.
🎭 Cultural & Emotional Resonance
- Nostalgia + analysis: it transcends mere fond remembrance by unpacking how video stores fostered social interaction, taste curation, and discovery—experiences lost in the streaming age .
- Historical framing: Perry positions video stores as an American 20th‑century ritual—quickly displaced by DVDs, big-box retail, and streaming—and mourns what was lost alongside them .
- A meta‑critique of cinema: he suggests that scripting ordinary, everyday experience—like browsing a video store—is nearly impossible in today’s streaming-dominated media world .
💬 Critical Reception
- ScreenAnarchy: Praised the film’s thorough research and structural ambition, while acknowledging overlong, occasionally reductive stretches .
- InSessionFilm: Applauded the avoidance of ‘talking heads’ and the weaving of nostalgia with deeper meaning, cautioning that its length limits mainstream appeal.
- Flood Magazine / BFI: Called it a love letter to video culture—“endearingly messy as a mom-and-pop video store”—ideally suited to cinephile audiences .
🎬 Should You Watch It?
- Yes, if you’re a cinephile interested in film form, cultural history, or media anthropology—especially of the video era.
- Maybe skip it if you struggle with long documentaries or seek tighter narrative arcs—its thoughtful scope may feel unwieldy.
🧭 Final Take
Videoheaven is a monumental cultural collage—part nostalgic homage, part critical analysis, shot through with affection and academic rigor. While its length and occasional over-saturation can deter casual viewers, its rich array of clips, intellectual curiosity, and emotional resonance make it a standout in media-essay filmmaking. It reminds us that, at a time when every choice is algorithmically handed to us, the ritual of browsing—of chance discovery, social interaction, and tactile decision-making—was once magical, communal, fleeting…and now gone.
If you’re ready to lean into its indulgences, Videoheaven offers a deep dive into what it felt like to hang out among tapes, to weigh titles and cover art, to experience the social dynamics of that ritual. And in the end, it asks: what cinematic stories have we lost in leaving that world behind?