The Most Unknown review: Netflix documentary gets lost in its own existential quest

The Most Unknown, Netflix’s latest documentary, is a scientific adventure that never really launches into infinity and beyond. The key concept is the unknown, the vastness of knowledge that eludes current human comprehensibility. The protagonists are a bunch of creative scientists from vastly different fields forming beads on a chain of discovery that reaches deeper and deeper into the unknown with the flashlight of human ingenuity and thirst for an accomplice. A documentary of this kind and magnitude cannot help but inspire wonder. Rather, it must. But while it occasionally provides glimpses of the possibilities that keep emerging before the human race, perhaps bogged down by its short runtime and format, it fails to elicit the sense of wonder that keeps our mouths open. [caption id=“attachment_5088031” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from the documentary.[/caption] Filmmaker Ian Cheney puts an intriguing concept in place by bringing individual scientists from different fields in contact with each other to try and provide an interdisciplinary approach to his task. Beginning with a microbiologist meeting a physicist, Cheney introduces two individuals to each other at one time in a bid to see how far their interests converge. The physicist exploring the mysteries of dark matter, for instance, next meets a psychologist who’s studying consciousness who, in turn, meets up with an astrobiologist and so on. The idea is to give the viewer a glimpse of the vast worlds of knowledge humans are just beginning to explore and how they all interconnect under the umbrella of that most primal of human drives: knowing. Ideally, we should have been watching Cheney’s concept in a limited series format. With more time at hand, he could have delved deeper into the individual disciplines, therefore illuminating them better for the uninitiated.

At present, TMU traipses across the razor’s edge of understanding, too little for those with an interest in the subjects and sometimes way too much jargon for those unaware of the disciplines. More than anything else, the massive amounts of information that needs to be condensed to sustain the narrative often strips it of its wonderment.

Sometimes, valuable time is spent on the unnecessary banter between the individuals. Nature is hardly ever devoid of drama. So it is even more frustrating to witness these interesting subjects failing at drawing us into the film’s narrative. This is not to say that there aren’t moments, especially in the later portions of the film, where you feel pulled into the unknown along with the scientists. Sadly, these moments are all too few and far between. Whatever the documentary lacks for in drama, it tries to salvage with the interconnectedness of differing fields of scientific endeavour. Then there are the scientists themselves, mercifully coming across as individuals full of humour instead of the stolid eggheads cinema can often falsely have you believe. Their disciplines may appear worlds away from each other. But their pursuit of knowledge and the childlike sense of wonder when confronted with the new and the unknown is fascinating to behold. Lastly, there’s nature herself, calmly carrying on its work, full of magical secrets and as beautiful as ever. There is so much to see here that, despite the film’s dramatic missteps, you cannot but continue watching it. The most interesting takeaway from the film is the tremendous sense of humility that underlies the endeavours of these gifted individuals. Their awareness of the boundlessness that confronts them is staggering. It is only matched by their firm belief in the resilience of the human spirit to explore new worlds. A deep sense of optimism underpins the film. One has to agree with the neurologist Anil Seth’s belief that although the vastness of the unknown may appear too big, we have only come thus far by constantly going beyond what we thought was achievable and graspable. The Most Unknown sets out to offer a lot to the viewer. But the portions it serves are often too small to satiate our desire. They serve as aperitifs to whet the appetite for discovery that lies latent within all of us. Now that Google has brought a majority of us that little bit closer to the fountains of knowledge, Cheney’s film exhorts us to jump into the deep end of the ocean and do our own little bit of exploring.