Netflix’s Tony Robbins Documentary Sells Self-Help Snake Oil

Last month, at a Tony Robbins-led Unleash the Power Within seminar in Dallas, at least 30 people were treated for burns sustained during a hot coal walk. For the 56-year-old best-selling author, business strategist, and self-help speaker, it was an unfortunate bit of PR: Witnesses described the exercise, undertaken by 7,000 attendees, as poorly organized and mismanaged, saying that several participants paused midwalk to take selfies. But if there’s a silver lining—and when you’re a life coach with a net worth of $480 million and a client list that once included Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, you can probably find one—the incident is sure to drum up interest in director Joe Berlinger’s Netflix documentary, Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru.

Spoiler alert: There’s no hot coal walk in I Am Not Your Guru, a behind-the-scenes look at Robbins’s Date With Destiny course in Boca Raton, Fla. If anyone is stepping lightly here, it’s the filmmaker. Granted not-quite-all access to the six-day, $4,995-per-head event, Berlinger trains his camera on Robbins at every phase: delivering keynote addresses on happiness and fulfillment to a frenzied audience; engaging participants in emotional one-on-ones about their dysfunctional childhood; confabbing backstage with staff and crew; even meditating beachside at his sprawling Palm Beach mansion. The result is more infomercial than exposé.