I'm a casual fan of Pentatonix: I liked their Daft Punk mashup, and their work with Todrick Hall seemed fun, so when this popped up on Netflix I thought I'd give it a go. (And I tend to like band documentaries - I loved the Eagles one, for example, even though I'm too young to remember their heyday and never really liked their music that much.)
But I found this movie so uncomfortable to watch I only managed about 65 minutes before I turned it off. I think it was done with the band's permission, but if so I'm not sure how they allowed it to be released.
Scott Hoying clearly sees himself as the band's 'leader', and he and his super-BFF (and possibly boyfriend? it was hard to tell) Mitch Grassi are always palling around and laughing together, mostly to the exclusion of everyone else in the band. It was kind of tragic watching scene after scene in which beat-boxer Kevin Olusola tries to talk to Hoying, and get ignored or brushed off every time.
Kirstie Maldonado spends much of the film talking about how sick she is, but we don't find out why or how this affects her performances, or what's wrong, or whether the rest of the band knows or cares how she's feeling - other than performances and singing practice, none of the other band members seem to interact with her.
Avi Kaplan comes across as 'the other guy' in a boy band: Cheerful, good at his job, happy to have that job - but ultimately expendable the minute he asks for one penny more than Hoying and Grassi want to give him.
I know others have complained there wasn't enough performance footage; I actually thought there wasn't enough of anything else: It was light on backstory, band history, how they managed to go viral, how they will transition from covers to original songs, etc. If I want performance footage, there is plenty on YouTube - I was hoping to learn how a marginal acapella group had managed to achieve mainstream success.
The band seemed more like a self-promoting business machine (if I heard them mention their Grammy or their 'sold out' shows one more time, I was going to kill myself) than anything organic, and I was left feeling that while Hoying and Grassi were clearly super-close, the rest of the band was largely ambivalent toward each other (and I'm pretty sure Hoying and Grassi hate Olusola, who just kept trying to be their friend).
If you like Pentatonix, by all means watch this - but be prepared to have your illusions shattered.
