The Trouble with Mr Doodle

This is an absolute GEM of a docu-movie that puts you right at the heart of the Mr Doodle story. This film deserves to be a "trending" tile on Netflix or Prime. Beautifully shot, blending old family footage with early archive work and modern day stop motion animation - the audience is left wondering two key things: 1. How does Mr Doodle do what he does?; and 2. How did they make and edit this film so well to pull together his full story? It is an emotional rollercoaster taking the audience on a complex journey through the challenges of the person (Sam) and the character (Mr Doodle). It left me with the overwhelming sense that everyone needs to get to know the work and life of Mr Doodle.

I really did feel for Sam and his family and right the way through was fully invested ... I shed a tear or two... until it became clear that they weren't going to talk at all about what psychosis actually is, what caused it and how it was treated. For a time it looked like he may be schizophrenic and we can only assume that that was explored and found not to be the case but we are not informed really of any of the facts or clinical exploration that must have happened around the time he was deeply unwell. The problem is that "The Trouble..." is the whole premise of the film, so without it being fully explored, I'm sad to say that it feels like a promotional opportunity.

In a time where too many "content creators" have broken down, I really feel that the science, the causes and the risks should have been explored.

The documentary covers the rise to fame of Sam Cox aka Mr Doodle, who is best known for his exploits in Doodling a Kent mansion inside and out which was internationally televised a few years ago.

The film takes you into the mind of Mr Doodle, how the character and his art evolved, his rise to fame in the art industry and making Sam one of the most successful young artists in the world.

The story takes a rather dark turn where being Mr Doodle completely consumes Sam, in a way that I can only compare to a supervillain from a Marvel movie, the sometimes haunting and tearful path even has a few funny moments, it's not a light watch and is as much about the psychology of Mr Doodle as it is the art. I'm not a regular documentary viewer but this one had me hooked.

Firstly no reflection of Sam, his partner or family, conditions are real and awful and I'm not going to cast shade on his journey or story however this making content for awareness is so tedious at this point.

As someone deep into the mental health system what has all this awareness done? Has it created more jobs, more people get exactly what they need, appointments are regular and personalised? They can tackle multiple issues, well no, quite the opposite, it's lead to the highest number of people clogging up the system and an alarming amount of professionals having to be spread thin for a growing number of people exploiting and abusing the service who use mental health to excuse their personality. The good ira done is heavily outweighed because no one fought for action, just attention, don't believe social media all the time. It's worse than it's ever been as like many things, more aware you make people, the more that'll abuse it for personal gain.

So why did I hate this? Well quite easy, there was provably 15 minutes of silly silly including him doing "crazy eyes" at the camera in a situation where he was told to do it rather than a bad time, the filming of it spiralling and all the effects made it just another cheap cash in, making an entertainment show out of something important, the end scene with the baby was just awful. How that poor girl stayed is beyond me.

There's no detail in the stories, no specifics, no medical experts explaining issues, no talk of and of the ramifications, no talk of really how family felt, how the gf felt or any of that. No real examples of exactly what happened when bad, even though anyone with a brain could see he had issues early on in their filming. It was just a shallow entertainment piece, there was nothing about psychosis, a condition I have. It was just a word in a senate. There was just no detail, no meat to the story and a clear lack of interest in going even remotely deeply. It was lazy, too focused on silly camera effects and him needless trying to look crazy.

It'll get praise because people are too scared to actually fight for real mental health change.

The Trouble with Mr Doodle really gave us such an insight into the extremely talented artist Sam Cox ( Mr Doodles ) brain/ life this film will inspire & help a lot of people myself included. Sam & his family really should feel proud to be sharing such a heartfelt & brave part of their life, hearing from his family's & wife's even Sam's school Art teachers perspective of what took place really was so touching.

Watching Mr Doodle & Mrs Doodles amazing Doodle mansion be created from start to end is absolutely breathtaking & this film will show you that your dreams truly can become reality! I couldn't recommend watching this more you'll be hooked the whole way through,