“Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants To Live Forever” Review

Do you want to live forever? It’s a question that everybody has thought of at some point, but more as an impossible scenario. Every human will die and it’s an existential dread that we all eventually have to come to terms with. But for somebody as rich as Bryan Johnson, death is seen as another mountain to conquer, as absurd a goal as the viability of artificial intelligence or the colonization of Mars. As with those other endeavors, Johnson’s thirst for a longer life is one that is personally driven, but also societally divorced from any greater impact he may spew out in his social media posts.

This documentary doesn’t shy away from Bryan’s shortcomings but also doesn’t interrogate them much. When he goes over his daily routine with the documentary crew, he explains how he takes dozens upon dozens of pills a day to stay healthy. However, other scientists have noted that this does not make Bryan a great guinea pig for testing longevity theories. Which pills worked and which ones didn’t? There’s no way to track any of this in a meaningful way that can be applied to others. Why did the filmmakers not question Bryan about this aspect? It’s likely they didn’t because they knew the response. Whenever Bryan is criticized, he merely laughs or scoffs, discounting the idea that all this work he is doing will benefit nobody, but himself.

On that personal level, however, Bryan’s motivations make sense. He went through a bitter divorce, had a falling out with the Mormon church, lost contact with two of his kids, and struggles to maintain the relationship with his remaining son going off to college. When he speaks about wanting to stay fit for the future to appreciate more moments with his son, his obsession with untested sciences is understandable. There is, however, a level of weirdness to the obsession when Bryan convinces his son to give him a plasma transfusion for potential health benefits. The vampiric comparisons were not lost on Bryan’s critics, presented as another social media trend for Bryan to laugh and forget.

But there’s a huge disconnect felt when Bryan starts speaking about how to apply his health cult to the rest of the world. So many red flags are raised when he starts bragging about his YouTube award and promoting a $37 olive oil, which critics have claimed “tastes like shit.” Bryan has clearly not thought this through and relies less on science in favor of hope for his methods to be a benefit to the future. The obvious question that is thankfully asked is about wealth disparity. If Bryan’s experiments are successful, what good is that going to do somebody who can’t afford his lifestyle, which happens to be, you know, the overwhelming majority of the planet? Bryan’s answer is a childish one, that if 10,000 people get this treatment, it’ll become more affordable over time. Which one of those dozens of pills convinced him to believe in the bullshit theory of trickle-down economics?

The uncomfortable distance the filmmakers take with this topic leaves a sour taste in the mouth. The focus and hope that Bryan places on health is framed as being positive, holding him up among the ranks of philosophers. Even with this flowery conclusion, Bryan still comes off as a rich brat who has become so ignorant of how the world works. He treats the divorce of his wife, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, as a mere hurdle and the sending of his son off to college as the end of the world. He starts weeping and embraces his boy while back-to-school shopping with his grown-up offspring. “Why am I crying in a Target?” he asks. The answer is simple: Like death, Bryan refuses to come to terms with finality. Seeing your children go off to college is hard, but it’s extra hard when the film frames the child as Bryan’s only friend and becomes a plasma-donating “blood boy.”

You really have to peer through the favorable lens of Don’t Die to see the insecurity of a rich guy who doesn’t want to die. Bryan Johnson ends the film with a blanket statement about his actions, remarking that he’s trying to better himself and that he doesn’t have to justify himself. Of course, he doesn’t have to justify himself. What wealthy person ever has to explain the stupid shit they do? That’s how Bryan can get away with his terrible science, scammy tactics, and a general disconnect with our current healthcare problems. Tackling our wealth inequality and an unjust healthcare system requires so much more than the amateurish critique Brian serves up, commenting on how our culture focuses on junk food, beer, and drugs as recreation and escape. That’s not exactly deep shit for someone who is spoken of as a philosopher of health. If our society needs to be changed on a fundamental level to ensure better life expectancy, why doesn’t Brian use his money to do enact that change? I don’t know, maybe it’d take too much time away from his pill chugging, YouTube posts, and gene therapy. Bryan already sounded like another delusional capitalist to despise, but this film made me detest him further, no matter how hard the director tries to make us feel for the sympathies of Johnson, a man who can afford all these healthcare procedures that you could never afford in your lifetime. He will might live longer, but he will die, as we all will, while deceiving himself that his rich-guy routine will benefit mankind (it won’t).