Wormwood is a 2017 American six-part docudramaminiseries directed by Errol Morris and released on Netflix on December 15, 2017. The series is based on the life of a scientist, Frank Olson, who worked for a secret government biological warfare program located at Fort Detrick, Maryland. It focuses on the events leading up to and following his controversial death, which the US government originally claimed was a tragic accident, but later admitted was likely a suicide, caused by a mental breakdown brought on after being unknowingly dosed with LSD, while at a meeting with colleagues from the CIA who were involved in Project MKUltra. It also in present day, follows Frank Olson's son, and discusses his belief that his father may have been murdered due being perceived as a potential security risk. Interspersed between interviews and archival footage, are live action reenactments of the final day's of Frank Olson's life and the various theories involving his death.
Plot
Wormwood is told through Eric Olson, the son of Frank Olson, an American biological warfare scientist and Central Intelligence Agency employee, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1953. Nine days after Olson was covertly dosed with LSD by his CIA supervisor as part of Project MKUltra, he plunged to his death from the window of a hotel room in New York City. His death was initially regarded as a suicide, but subsequent investigations have raised questions of a coverup of an alleged murder. Wormwood is an allusion to a Bible verse about a star that makes everything bitter, an allusion to biological weapons, and the effect of Eric Olson's search for a resolution regarding the death of his father for 60 years. Errol Morris said that "What Wormwood tries to do is tell a story about how we know what we know and how reliable is that knowledge." A key piece of evidence the film relies on is a CIA assassination manual from 1953, which instructs agents, "The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface."
The New York Times awarded it a NYT Critic's Pick with reviewer A. O. Scott saying "Mr. Morris presents a powerful historical argument in the guise of a beguiling work of cinematic art — and vice versa." Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for Vulture.com, "The filmmaking gathers all the bits and pieces of the story together and arranges them in ways that are clever, surprising, and so aggressively self-conscious that there are times when the whole thing gets close to turning into an intellectualized formal exercise...there’s never a moment where Olson or Morris fail to fascinate." Vanity Fair called it "one of the most original things you’ll see all year."
