Films·
Dear Kelly
Behind every conspiracy theorist is a story—and this one is heartbreaking.
Metadata
| Director | Andrew Callaghan, Elliot Liedgren, Jarrod Nicoson |
| Year | 2024 |
| Writer | Andrew Callaghan |
| Stars | Andrew Callaghan, Kelly Johnson, Kyle Johnson |
The Movie in 3 Sentences
- We actually went to see the premier where the Andrew Callaghan himself was there to present the opening of the movie. Dear Kelly follows Andrew Callaghan as he investigates Kelly Johnson, also known as Kelly J. Patriot, a man he first met at a 2021 White Lives Matter rally in Huntington Beach. Over several years, the documentary traces Kelly’s personal history, foreclosure-related anger, political radicalization, revenge fantasies, and his family’s attempts to pull him back from the edge. It feels less like a standard political profile and more like a disturbing, sad character study of one man falling deeper into a conspiratorial world.
- The documentary showed how online politics can turn private pain into public extremism, but this one feels more intimate and uncomfortable because it stays close to one person’s unraveling.
- At the end of the day, people are just people, and they are flawed, and you are to love them as they are - but to what extend? As the documentary bring a very empathetic light to the right wing radicalization, it surfaced more questions than answers (probably as intended)