If there’s one criticism to be lobbed at Jeffrey McHale‘s energetic, engrossing, and often quite loving documentary “It’s Dorothy!,” it’s that the documentarian has selected perhaps too good of a subject. The mythology and meaning of Dorothy Gale, the great hero of “The Wizard of Oz,” could easily inspire an entire series of films. While McHale somehow manages to touch on a dozen hot topics in his documentary — what the on-screen role means to the women who have played her, how and why the LGBTQ+ community so love her, how we grapple with the misdeeds of our favorite artists, and that’s literally just a small sample — that can make the actual film on offer feel a bit unfinished.
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Still, McHale manages to hold all these very big topics (plus the sense that he may have really wanted to make a Judy Garland doc, and has essentially shoved that project within the confines of this one) together in an otherwise slim 97-minute running time. Packed with major talking heads, zippy animation, and a bouncing (and bouncy) sense of time (and timeline), “It’s Dorothy!” succeeds mightily when it comes to its most elemental thesis.
Just how influential is the character of Dorothy Gale, McHale and his doc ask? Well, enough that this critic walked away from “It’s Dorothy!” delighted and stimulated, and wanting much more. Maybe that sense of unfinished-ness is, in fact, a feature, not a bug.
To help tell (and sell) his concept, McHale (who previously turned the same kind of attention to another, wholly different fictional character, that of the iconic Nomi Malone from “Showgirls” in his “You Don’t Nomi”) has assembled a truly enviable cast of chatterboxes, not just creators, artisans, performers, and cultural commentators like Amber Ruffin, Gregory Maguire, John Waters, Lena Waithe, Margaret Cho, Roxane Gay, Rufus Wainwright, and Walter Murch, but an eye-popping array of women who have actually played Dorothy on the stage and screen.
The breadth of former Dorothys that McHale has brought together speaks to just how wide-ranging this film is: audiences will be treated to insights from Ashanti, Fairuza Balk, Danielle Hope, Nichelle Lewis, and Shanice Shantay. And if you are not the sort of Oz fan that can reel off precisely which project each of these talented women played Dorothy in? You’re about to get a wonderful, quite honest education and introduction to each of them. (One additional, if repetitive note: can we get a documentary just about Shantay, who was chosen through an open casting call to star in “The Wiz Live!” when she was just 18? What a charisma machine!)
Understandably missing from the doc, the original Dorothy herself, the inimitable and dearly missed Judy Garland, looms large over every moment. McHale’s documentary is interestingly stitched together, initially focusing on Garland and her landmark casting in Victor Fleming’s enduring 1939 classic film (and seemingly setting out a fairly point-to-point timeline). Garland, her influence, and her tragic life make for a smart throughline for the film, and while McHale (who also edited the film) opts to bounce around between times, places, and Dorothys, eschewing a standard linear telling to unspool a different kind of telling, it’s Garland that grounds it.
Of course, that also means that Garland emerges as the film’s true star — naturally, right? — and even when McHale’s other talking heads are expounding on their lives and careers through the lens of Dorothy, McHale often illustrates their points with clips from other Garland films. If McHale really does just want to make a Judy Garland doc, we’re not sure who we need to lobby for that (hello, Liza?), but it’s clear he has a profound understanding and respect for her, one he launders here through the mythos of Dorothy.
That does mean, however, that other, more pointedly Dorothy and Oz-centric observations get a bit less screentime than some audience members might expect or hope for. While “Oz” mastermind and writer L. Frank Baum’s own great-granddaughter Gita Dorothy (duh!) Morena is in the film (as is the case with some other talking heads, she only “appears” via voice), her own relationship with her legacy and namesake absolutely deserve a longer section. Again, repetitive as it might be, a film just about Morena (and, for instance, her discovery of Baum’s horrific views on Indigenous people) would make for a compelling watch on its own.
Such is the case with a wide raft of other topics McHale similarly dips into (and out of), especially the LGBTQ+ community’s affection for Dorothy (though McHale does aces work unpacking that whole “friend of Dorothy” thing in quick time), the monumental legacy of the revisionist classic “The Wiz,” and a consideration of just what the heck was happening with “Return of Oz.” Still, the survey-style approach ensures there’s something for everyone here, and anyone really itching for more will surely find a wealth of information elsewhere.
We’ll stay away from bad “Oz” puns here — a Yellow Brick Road reference? not being in Kansas anymore? a slipper crack? — and tell it clearly, as McHale does here: this one has got plenty of heart to spare.
Grade: B
“It’s Dorothy!” premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
