Welcome to the internet, where so many people are Seeking Mavis Beacon

The internet doesn’t exist physically. Yet it profoundly impacted me and countless other souls under the age of 35. These are the people who grew up in an age where terms like “web browsers” and “search engines” were common terms. Familiar webpages became like cozy nooks for us growing up in the age of cyberweb. Yet you can’t hold the internet in your hands. It’s not something tangible. A slew of excellent Dan Olson video essays have really crystallized how human beings can become unhealthily obsessed with internet matters that aren’t real. The souls chronicled in his MetaVerse or Flat Earth videos are substituting reality for a dangerous simulacrum.  These virtual spaces are not real, no matter how much capital you put into certain Silicon Valley schemes.

The lack of a physical form for the online world and its treasures lends an innate sense of mystery to this domain. Who makes the web pages we travel to every day? Who designed the online games folks spend hours each day immersed in? There are so many wizards lurking behind curtains in this virtual land of Oz. Director Jazmin Jones tries to get some answers on one specifically nagging computer-based issue in the documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon. Who was the woman in a typing game that helped shape a generation?

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was a software program first released in 1987. It was a simple entity teaching players how to type with the aid of the fictional lady Mavis Beacon. Beacon was an incredibly rare Black woman in the world of computer programs and games. Inevitably, the character struck a chord with a generation of youngsters. That’s very much the case for Seeking Mavis Beacon’s central subjects, Jones and hacker extraordinaire Olivia McKayla Ross.

The pair are investigating the identity of the actress who portrayed Mavis Beacon in the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing box art. This woman shaped their lives yet nobody knows her name! Jones and Ross are endlessly curious to figure out if she’s okay, whether or not she was properly compensated for this game, and so much more. They don’t have many resources at their disposal, as seen by their cramped “headquarters” in a dingy little office space. However, they’ve got endless determination, lots of interviews to conduct, and a wide array of thoughts on how Mavis Beacon reflects matters like race representation in technology and A.I. Seeking Mavis Beacon unwaveringly chronicles the pair on their journey to find a woman who is everywhere yet nowhere.

As Seeking Mavis Beacon begins, Jones delves viewers into everything related to Mavis Beacon with a ScreenLife style of filmmaking. This term applies to movies telling their stories through a desktop screen, like Unfriended and Searching. Here, Jones and Ross have their interior lives reflected through a Windows and Mac screen (respectively). Both desktops play carious explanatory videos expounding on Mavis Beacon’s legacy and Seeking Mavis Beacon’s central themes. You know you’re in for something excitedly unique when both Markiplier videos and F is For Fake clips are used to crystallize a motion picture's thesis.

Eventually, Seeking Mavis Beacon’s form shifts over to a more traditional style of documentary filmmaking. The camera is no longer glued to a pair of computer screens. Instead, it's following Jones and Ross on their investigation. Welcome, visual flourishes do connect the dots between reality and cyberspace, though. Most notably, a little window accompanying new interview subjects reflects the person’s interests and pronouns in terminology rooted in computers. The internet isn’t real, but its impact on people is very much palpable. This is nicely reflected in these details and elements like vulnerable testimony from Jones on how much Mavis Beacon meant to her.

Around Seeking Mavis Beacon's halfway point, though, the editing, camerawork, and structure lose their verve. Everything becomes too stuck in the standard documentary style. The energy and tech-driven ambiance of early scenes that felt so right for an investigative drama about the face of a software program has vanished. It’s a welcome relief once the Screenlife visual scheme briefly returns in the third act! The more conventional Seeking Mavis Beacon visual details, unfortunately, collide with a messy stretch of the runtime. This is when the production bounces back and forth too quickly between an array of weighty topics. Subjects like why all “subservient” A.I. programs like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and the like are women deserve more time to breathe rather than getting barreled through.

Seeking Mavis Beacon is at its weakest when it feels too hurried or cramped. By contrast, the documentary is at its strongest just letting the camera roll on Jones and Ross being ramshackle detectives. There’s an engaging naturalism to their behavior as they scramble for contact information or possible leads. A deeply important personal mission hasn’t transformed the pair into modern-day Hercule Poirot. They’re ordinary people pushing through seemingly impossible odds. That’s a great down-to-earth perspective to build a documentary around.

Plus, the dynamic between Jones and Ross is so warm and delightful. Their bond is deeply palpable and informs the feature’s most moving moments. Some documentaries (like the works of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock) suffer mightily putting their directors and producers front-and-center on the screen. Sometimes these souls are just not nearly as good in front of the camera as they are behind it. That's not a problem for Seeking Mavis Beacon. Jones and Ross are deeply compelling personalities to spend time with, even when they aren't sharing alternatively amusing and insightful banter. Separately, these two still prove great anchors for the larger Mavis Beacon investigation.

As a director, Jones also shows some solid visual chops in terms of the backgrounds chronicled in Seeking Mavis Beacon. Throughout this documentary, Jones cuts between cramped interiors like her headquarters (illuminated by flickering fluorescent lamps) and grand largely empty exteriors. Worlds beyond a laptop just feel so extra grand directly compared to tiny storage lockers or homes. A shot of Ross playing the harp outdoors while a lake glistens in the background or the two leads goofing around in a big parking lot depicts the expansive world beyond their keyboards. Emphasizing the scope of these realms leads one to wonder…can Jones and Ross really find answers in such seemingly endless domains? Jones doesn’t rely on didactic narration to hammer these themes home. Just cutting from tech-driven interior domiciles to sweeping outdoor tableaus is enough to crystallize this concept.

Striking backdrops (including a memorable laundromat decked out in bright blue and green colors, not to mention a Tokyo Drift arcade game) populate so many Seeking Mavis Beacon sequences. They’re among the best visual details in a documentary that some truly impressive highs in its imagery. Unfortunately, other parts of the production show up on-screen either too routinely or hurriedly. Perhaps such messy qualities, though, are fitting for a documentary about the online world. After all, what other domain could be unreal yet deliver something as profoundly impactful on real-world people like Mavis Beacon?