Short Takes: ‘Mr. Wonderful’ (2022) ★ ½

Shouldn’t documentaries have a point? One would think so, but then one isn’t Larry Costa, the director of Mr. Wonderful, a 47-minute documentary which purports to tell the story of Charles Phillips, a middle-aged gay man, presumably unhoused, with a long rap sheet, substance abuse issues, and delusions of grandeur.

Phillips’ stream-of-consciousness rambling about his past is oddly compelling, even if it’s clear that much of it is bullshit. Costa juxtaposes Phillips’ tales of resisting a marriage proposal with his many mugshots, as well as a list of his many charges (DUI, drug dealing, abduction). When Phillips talks of helping older people, Costa inserts text on screen revealing that Phillips was convicted in 2010 of abusing a 65-year-old neighbor. Often, the onscreen text is sarcastic, e.g., when Phillips loses his place in his story (“Damn, that reefer good!”), the text on the right hand on the screen reads “Intelligent!” When Phillips finds his place in that story and talks of being hired as a butler/gofer for a wealthy man, replacing his predecessor to whom Phillips regularly sold crack and ass (crack and crack?), because he showed “respect, honesty and loyalty” to his client’s boss, the text on screen reads: “Tip: Get friend fired, then take his job.” Phillips also has ambitions of being a rap artist, which Costa encourages, offering him a chance to record a few tracks, but it’s clear Costa is more interested in getting footage of Phillips making an ass of himself than helping him pursue his dream. Phillips biggest failure as a rapper, by the way, is his inability to stay focused long enough to spit out more than a single bar.

Wisely, Costa refrains from the snarky chyrons when Phillips graphically recounts the sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend when he was 6 years old. It’s also one of the few times Phillips is likely telling the truth. Had this documentary been about LGBTQ+ homelessness or queer sex workers, the abuse revelations might have been allowed to provide insight into Phillips’ life of bad choices. But that’s not a story Costa is interested in telling; he just wants the viewer to know Charles Phillips is full of shit.

Charles Phillips doesn’t necessarily deserve the viewers’ sympathy, but viewers do deserve a real documentary. Mr. Wonderful has more in common with a YouTube video of teens ridiculing homeless people in the park for views, only it’s not that honest.