Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss; Grade: C+
Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss is a documentary centered on recording artist Juice Wrld. Here in this documentary will feature never before seen footage, giving us a closer look at Juice Wrld in his personal everyday life as you’ll get to learn a little bit about whom he is, followed by those whom experience his tragic death alongside with Juice Wrld.
First time I heard of Juice Wrld was when a song “Lucid Dreams” was a trending song on the radio or on YouTube, which I thought originally it was Post Malone singing the song… A lot of music listeners have mistaken both artists before, they both have similar voices. As I listen more of Juice Wrld’s music, I slowly became a fan of his, as he’s got a great voice and the substance with his music isn’t half bad, sometimes I could relate to the lyrics he rap and sang in terms of what goes on through his mind. The music of his would be described as Depression music, it’s become an oddly popular trend in music recently, Juice Wrld, Trippie Redd, Lil Peep, and XXXTentacion pretty much influence this brand new sound of music fans have been yearning for. Juice Wrld’s sudden and tragic passing honestly left me pretty sadden, I believe Juice Wrld had potential to be one of the most popular and best artists, the kid had the talent whether it be his voice or the pen at hand. What bums me out more is the fact before he passed, I was debating on seeing his concert in Vegas early Summer 2019… It sucks myself and many other fans whom seriously enjoy his music, will never get that opportunity to see him perform in person. Hoping Juice Wrld is resting well, as his memory will live on forever.
A fair amount of anticipation was made for this documentary film, I was looking forward to learn more about the artist at hand, since I really don’t know much about him other than him being from Chicago and has a troubled soul as he sings about dying, popping pills, and drinking. This documentary caught me by surprise, as it turns out it’s not a traditional style documentary film. Sure there is a couple sequences of people being interviewed talking about Juice Wrld, but it’s mostly sequences of actually experiencing Juice Wrld unfiltered from this found footage, as in a way you do get to learn about Juice Wrld as far as the person.
When watching this documentary, we learn a fair amount of information about Juice Wrld. Juice Wrld had a girlfriend named Ally, whom he met at Lawyer school as Juice Wrld was at first wanting to become a lawyer. But surely in due time Juice Wrld decided to pursue music instead, as his girlfriend Ally decided to join along with him for the journey ahead. I would describe Juice Wrld’s relationship with Ally to really show the true side of Juice Wrld. Sure in the music he sings/raps about he sounds a bit more intimidating at times, as he’s someone not to mess with, however he’s a bit more vulnerable than he appears to be on his music. Though Juice Wrld has a troubled soul, his soul does however show a genuine kind and loving spirit, the troubled soul could be the fact the pain he’s dealing with mentally and physically considering he continues to abuse the substances at hand. However Juice Wrld does confront the problematic of medications, as he claims it’s doing way more harm than good in one brief sequence while he’s shooting a gun.
We learned that Juice Wrld is an extremely hard working individual, whom works effortlessly on his music to the point where he could go four days without sleep. You can tell how dedicated Juice Wrld is to the music grind: He looks extremely drain and exhausted yet still manages to come through for music. When one is passionate about anything in life, the mentality really can make you feel you can go on forever.
We learned that Juice Wrld freestyle ability is off this world. Much often free-styling is extremely difficult, especially trying to create something that can be comprehendible where it doesn’t sound like mush. Juice Wrld however makes free-styling look incredibly easy, but he does so where what your hearing makes complete sense the entire time. The man is really a machine in this art form, considerably maybe Top 5 Best Freestylers of all time?! I think it’s debatable. So despite it not being a traditional style documentary film, you do at least get to learn about him solely by watching him live life in the footage shown, so I felt it was a very intriguing way to go about this documentary film.
I do however feel if one is not a fan nor doesn’t know Juice Wrld’s existence, I feel this documentary is going to be a very difficult watch. It’s solely because viewers might find these sequences quite bland, to the point where they feel incredibly bored as their just watching a random guy in his twenties vlog basically and I can completely understand that. Some moments I was kind of bored with what I was watching, especially when Juice Wrld chats up with friends and such that really didn’t provide much of a purpose in this documentary other than Juice Wrld having friends is all.
I get the whole choice of film making in this documentary, however the way it transitions to a traditional documentary style makes me question why not actually make it a traditional documentary film to begin with?! I mean if you’re going to create a different style to your documentary: Follow through beginning to end, this sudden transition feels unnecessary. I do wish this documentary was better structured to the point where it feels like one moving narrative, than it feels like sequences of random occurrences. This documentary will somewhat satisfy fans of Juice Wrld or people that causally like the artist, however I honestly was expecting more out of this.
Overall, Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss was a perfectly average film. I recommend watching this if you are a fan or like Juice Wrld, other than that I say a better watch would be Everybody’s Everything. -Mitch Smietana