HBO's The Weight of Gold on Olympic athletes and mental health should've been a docuseries

Variety

The Michael Phelps-produced documentary that features "unprecedented candor" from Olympic athletes detailing their lives in and out of the Games "helps humanize an experience that, to many sitting at home, feels more like a remote fantasy of American exceptionalism at work," says Caroline Framke. "There’s enough material to fuel an entire docuseries in the immersive vein of something like The Last Dance  — and yet, The Weight of Gold clocks in at just under an hour in total. With precious little time to spare its dozens of narrative avenues, this well-meaning documentary just can’t do justice to everything — and everyone — it wants to highlight. (It would also have done better to make its opening content disclaimer more explicit than 'the following film contains subject matter related to mental health that may be triggering'; please be advised that The Weight of Gold deals very directly with suicide and suicidal ideation.) There could be an entire episode in the lead-up to the Olympics, when children become singleminded athletes who believe that, as (speed-skater Apolo Anton) Ohno puts it, 'everything that’s not catered to you performing at the highest level in sport is a nonstarter.'" ALSO: Why Michael Phelps decided to make a documentary on the mental health struggles Olympians face.