‘Dear Mr. Brody’: a study of need and greed

Above : The documentary film “Dear Mr. Brody” is scheduled to open Friday at the Magic Lantern Theatre. (Photo/Greenwich Entertainment)

It seemed like a dream come true. In 1970, a young rich guy, Michael Brody Jr., promised to give away his fortune … to the tune of $25 million.

And all people had to do is ask.

Which, according to the documentary film “Dear. Mr. Brody,” they did. By the thousands. More like tens of thousands.

Trouble is, as the film points out, many – most, actually – of those requests went unanswered. Many – again, most — of the letters that Brody received asking for funds weren’t even opened.

Keith Maitland , who wrote and directed “Dear Mr. Brody,” is a documentary filmmaker whose previous work includes the 2016 mixed-media film “Tower.”

Of Maitland’s new film, which opens Friday at the Magic Lantern Theatre , the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

Michael Rechtshaffen of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Brody may have been a 15-minutes-of-fame footnote, but those tens of thousands of mainly unopened letters left in his wake continue to offer a penetrating glimpse into the persisting vulnerability of the human condition.”

Odie Henderson of RegerEbert.com wrote, “Dear Mr. Brody does a fine job of showing how the financial chasm between rich and poor people is as wide and insurmountable today as it was in 1970.”

Lisa Kennedy of the New York Times wrote, “Brody died in 1973. But the film’s exquisite pathos comes as Melissa Robyn Glassman, a producer, discovers a cache of unopened letters in (producer Ed) Pressman’s storage unit. Her sleuthing leads to letter writers – or their children – and those interviews are quietly stunning. It might be hard to upstage Brody, yet they do.”

Imagine that: upstaging a dreamer.