Anyone who has ever studied theatre at a formal level has sat through endless hours of strange “workshops,” which could include anything from moving around like an inflatable man outside of a car dealership to “get in touch with your body” or trauma dumping your most painful memories to a complete stranger in 90 second intervals. Depending on how they’re executed and who you ask, the exercises could be anything from either life-affirming therapy to utter nonsense. But the one thing everyone should agree on is that these workshops probably shouldn’t ever be led by Shia LaBeouf.
If you’re one of the outliers who wants to dispute that statement, consider watching “Slauson Rec.” The new documentary captures the polarizing actor’s attempt to start a free educational theatre company in South Central Los Angeles in 2018. What began with a series of free acting workshops on Saturdays for disadvantaged students and adults gradually involved into a more ambitious affair, with LaBeouf eventually corralling dozens of non-professional actors for a grueling rehearsal process during the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic in an attempt to stage an experimental drive-in theatre production. Directed by company member Leo Lewis O’Neil (and largely financed by LaBeouf himself), the documentary begins as a film about celebrity altruism before devolving into a portrait of a deeply unstable man hitting rock bottom.
If there’s one word to describe the LaBeouf we see at his initial workshops at the Slauson Rec Center, it would be intense. He paces through the gym with a manic intensity as he leads large groups of Angelenos through unorthodox acting exercises, often spouting bold declarations like “Porn is interesting to me because they actually fuck!” The energy might be off-putting to some, but his undeniable passion and eccentricity endeared him to many of his students.
But as time goes on, LaBeouf and his followers begin to yearn for a more ambitious project. The group’s early performances were largely devised, non-narrative shows that primarily consisted of actors wiggling their bodies around and saying whatever popped into their heads. But the restlessness of 2020 prompts LaBeouf to try his hand at directing a formal production. It turns out to be a decision that just about everyone involved came to regret.
Throughout the company’s months of socially-distanced rehearsals, LaBeouf spirals into an abusive maniac. Hardly a scene goes by where he isn’t screaming that somebody sucks, stinks, or has personally offended him with their mediocrity. What he perceives as an actor’s failure to giggle correctly prompts a deeply personal verbal beatdown in which he tells the man that he never wants to see him again after the production wraps. “It’s not my job to teach you,” he angrily screams at one student. Some actors quit the company rather than tolerate the abuse, which only makes LaBeouf harder on everyone else. There are so many different scenes of abuse that it would be impossible to write them off as isolated incidents. LaBeouf even demonstrates occasional self-awareness in the moment, saying “If somebody talked to me the way I’m talking to them, I’d shut down completely,” before continuing the exact same behavior. The most shocking part of the film is that anyone was willing to stick with him until the end.
Clocking in at just shy of two and a half hours and consisting primarily of footage of LaBeouf verbally abusing everyone around him, “Slauson Rec” is a long, often difficult viewing experience. That isn’t always a bad thing in the realm of documentaries, as plenty of vital nonfiction films have secured their place in cinema history by forcing us to look at ugly societal evils that needed to be remembered. But this is not “Shoah.” I’m hard pressed to think of another documentary that delivered less historical or social value in exchange for making its audience sit through so much unpleasantness.
Despite all of that, “Slauson Rec” is morbidly fascinating. Most sane people would hear a sentence like “Shia LaBeouf directing an experimental play starring a bunch of nonprofessional actors during an unprecedented global pandemic” and be able to predict how the film turns out with roughly 98% accuracy. But there’s always a gap between what we think we know about celebrities and what actually happens behind closed doors, so it’s satisfying to have those predictions validated with nearly three hours of documentary footage.
While the film gets rather redundant in its depiction of LaBeouf’s abuses, it wraps the story up with a surprisingly poignant call for grace and forgiveness. LaBeouf, who bought O’Neil a camera so he could shoot the documentary, sits down with him for a final interview and owns up to his horrible behavior. (At least, this specific horrible behavior, which is far from the worst thing he has been accused of.) He apologizes for the “god complex” that consumed him during Covid and admits that “I had to come to terms with the fact that I don’t have much to offer in terms of guidance.” Many will, of course, be tempted to say that the interview was a publicist-coached effort at rehabbing his image and the behind-the-scenes footage represents his real self. And while there’s no way to definitively refute that, it almost doesn’t matter. Because the film really isn’t about him.
When viewed as a two-and-a-half hour documentary about Shia LaBeouf being an asshole, “Slauson Rec” is rather pointless. But intentionally or not, it works more effectively as an artifact of pandemic-era dysfunction that captures the strange side quests and personality overhauls that so many of us attempted during a painful year. To many, the socially distanced screaming matches will be a memory of a time when our attempts to maintain normalcy during abnormal circumstances made us realize exactly how broken we really were. And if Shia of all people is ready to forgive himself for how he acted during those years, you and I shouldn’t hesitate to do the same.
Grade: C+
“Slauson Rec” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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