Ask Dr. Ruth

Ryan White's 2019 documentary traces the life of Ruth Westheimer as she approaches her ninetieth birthday. Born in Germany, sent to Switzerland at ten on the Kindertransport and having lost her family in the Holocaust, Westheimer became America's best-known sex therapist decades later. The film sets those two lives side by side: the woman who talked about sex on the radio without embarrassment, and the woman who struggles to return to her own past. Its best decision is telling her childhood in animation, accepting the limits of the form instead of inventing fictional footage where no archive exists. The career section, by contrast, is too celebratory; her stance during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is covered, but criticism of her positions barely enters. Who it's for: viewers interested in biographical documentary, the history of sex education and Holocaust testimony. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a portrait that keeps a critical eye on its subject, or who will find the weight of the life story and the celebratory tone uneasy together.