Brené Brown: The Call to Courage

Sandra Restrepo's 2019 Netflix production is the record of a stage show by the researcher Brené Brown. Working in social work at the University of Houston, Brown has spent more than a decade studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity and shame, and this performance addresses the wide audience she reached through two TED talks. The form is extremely simple: a stage, a microphone, one person. Brown's storytelling stays away from academic language and proceeds through personal examples. The film's limit is giving no concrete information about how the research findings were arrived at; the claims are supported by anecdote while the method goes undiscussed. It is worth watching aware of the difference between a self-help presentation and an academic one. Who it's for: viewers who like self-improvement content and productions in the speaker format. Who it's not for: anyone wanting concrete information about research method, or made uncomfortable by the language of self-help.