On paper, Harmontown seems like the very definition of a documentary discerning viewers should approach with caution. Its  main character is one of the executive producers, and its website is a subpage of the site for the podcast that gives the doc its name. This appears a tasteless recipe for self-aggrandizement, and in its opening minutes, the movie seems to bear out that suspicion. But over time, the doc takes many turns in how it depicts Dan Harmon. That’s how it becomes clear that skepticism may be appropriate, but overlooks one thing, something anyone familiar with the man will know: no one, not even the most probing filmmaker in the world, is going to be harsher on Dan Harmon than he will be on himself.

Harmon is best known as the co-creator of the web-based “television network” Channel 101 and, of course, the cult smash TV series Community. Beloved for its mixture of sincerity and metatextual stories that are often either pitch-perfect parodies of popular genres or commentaries on storytelling itself (or both), Community has nonetheless had a rocky road with network executives, who let Harmon go from the show in 2012. In the wake of this, Harmon coped by turning his monthly comedy show/podcast, Harmontown, into a weekly event. In 2013, he took the show on the road, touring the US. Writer/director Neil Berkeley and his crew accompanied the tour, and Harmontown is the result.

As stated above, the movie starts out looking like any other profile doc about an artist, talking up its subject to a degree just shy of hagiography. Numerous acting and writing contemporaries of Harmon are brought in for interview snippets in which they attest to his genius. The narrative takes the “woe is Harmon” approach to his unjust firing by NBC, framing it as the story of yet another creative whom the suits couldn’t understand. While this perception may be more or less accurate, that’s hardly evidence that Harmon is a saint undeserving of further scrutiny. If this were just a movie about what it’s like to write and create for television, such incuriosity would be forgivable. But the opening scene is Harmon waking up in bed and starting his day, so it’s clearly going for something more intimate. The stage seems set for disaster…

… and then it keeps going. And as the Harmontown tour goes on, it becomes apparent that Harmon is a deeply tempestuous human being. And not in a “tormented genius” mold, either. He experiences unnervingly dark moods, during which he lashes out at those around him. The film doesn’t minimize the hurt he’s causing to his friends and loved ones, especially his fiancee, Erin. In one brutally up-front sequence, Harmon confesses to the camera how he’s become so good at insulting people for maximum emotional pain, and speculates as to how he ever got that way.

That’s the most fascinating thing about Harmon — his acute self-awareness and endless self-interrogation. He scrutinizes his life as if it were a story, and tries to connect the dots that can explain why he is the way he is, and why he can’t change his bad parts, even though he knows he’s horrible. He’s seemingly unable to separate himself from using fictional tropes as a reference point. He’s a postmodern being formed wholly from our age, a kid who grew up immersed in media, and now functions almost always from some detachment. At the point this is evident, the movie is no longer about a storytelling savant too advanced for the rest of the world, but about a man who seemingly cannot stop sabotaging himself. Sarah Silverman, first showing up to talk about how smart and funny Harmon is, later relates with plain sadness how she had to fire him from his job as a writer on her sitcom when he became absolutely unbearable.

All of this may make Harmontown sound overly grim and joyless, but it isn’t. There’s a regular dosage of highlights from each stop of the tour that keep spirits high. Harmon might be a nightmare off the stage, but onstage, he’s a master entertainer, and he has a high rotation of equally ebullient guests. And the unlikely journey of Spencer Crittenden, a former fan who became a regular member of the show as the resident dungeon master for its Dungeons & Dragons sessions, provides an uplifting counterpoint to Harmon’s spiral of negativity. Near the end of the film, Harmon even says that if it has a hero, it’s Spencer, not himself.

Harmontown is overlong, to the point where one or more of the tour stops could have been excised from the film without really affecting the story. But it’s an effective anti-portrait of an artist, and a different kind of road documentary than we’re used to seeing. Harmon would never be satisfied with any story of his told conventionally, so one about him shouldn’t abide by all the rules, either.

Grade: B