MOVIE OF THE WEEK August 15, 2025: ANXIETY CLUB
Whether you live with anxiety yourself or care about someone who does, odds are good that Wendy Lobel’s documentary Anxiety Club will strike a resonant chord. As the comedians the movie follows share their stories — and their worries (so very many worries) — they reveal that no matter how funny they are on stage, they’re raw and vulnerable off stage. And that revelation makes them and their experiences all the more relatable.
Lobel introduces viewers to a group of comics that includes well-known curmudgeon Marc Maron, nebbishy stand-up Joe List, internet short-form-video success story Tiffany Jenkins, Sorry Baby writer/director Eva Victor, and others. All are known for not only acknowledging their ongoing struggles with anxiety and mental health but centering that struggle in their comedy. Clips of their routines and viral videos are both laugh-out-loud funny and insightful, offering a glimpse into what it’s like to inhabit the brain of someone who’s wired to anticipate worst-case scenarios at all times.
Lobel’s cameras also follow her subjects at home, with their loved ones and, in List and Jenkins’ cases, to therapy. Jenkins’ sessions with her therapist are especially affecting: A fiercely loving mother, Jenkins can’t prevent herself from picturing horrible things happening to her children, which means, she confesses, that she says no to fun things (the fair, sleepovers) in the interests of keeping them safe — and herself calm. She recognizes that this isn’t good for them in the long term, but it takes lots of work to confront her anxieties in a productive way. But watching her go through that process feels like it could have a direct impact on viewers in similar situations.
Ultimately, that’s the payoff of Anxiety Club. It’s almost certain to make people with anxiety feel less alone — to feel seen and validated and, hopefully, to believe that there are useful tools and strategies out there for them, too. And by wrapping their insecurities in the approachable garb of humor, Lobel and the featured comedians help spark empathy in those lucky viewers who don’t do constant battle with worries, intrusive thoughts, self-doubt, and more. Peace, love, understanding, and a few belly laughs — really, it’s not too much to ask for. — Betsy Bozdech
Team #MOTW’s comments:
Nell Minow: People who do not suffer from anxiety do not understand the difference between the anxiousness everyone feels about challenging situations and the kinds of constant and very troubling intrusive thoughts that constitute genuine mental illness. This sympathetic and ultimately hopeful documentary focuses on stand-up comics, whose job is exactly what most people would find terrifying, making yourself utterly vulnerable by being on stage before an audience with nothing but your own ideas. At first it is fascinating to see how the stand-ups use that opportunity to share and assuage their most terrifying experiences. But then, as we spend time with them in this sympathetic and illuminating film, and see them try different methods, meditation, exposure therapy, pharmaceuticals, we are touched by their courage and inspired by their resilience.
Leslie Combemale Anxiety Club is fascinating, whether viewers have anxiety or not. Documentarian Wendy Lobel has chosen a group of people in very different places with their anxiety. Some are finding a path through meditation, others have made peace with it, while still others are just beginning to find their way through. Since they’re’ all comedians, their humor comes through as well, making a difficult issue far easier to examine. The inclusion of meditation teacher and author Tara Brach is wonderful, and perhaps will lead to more folks knowing her work, especially those who connect with issues around anxiety. Overall, the film is a powerful, sensitive look that helps destigmatize a disorder challenging millions around the world.
Jennifer Merin Documemtary filmmaker Wendy Lobel’s highly entertaining and informative documentary Anxiety Club explores the connection between chronic anxiety and comic (as in stand up) relief. Lobel cleverly intercuts recorded clips of hilarious stand up comedy routines and on camera interviews with the women and men who perform them. And there are commentaries from psychologists, life improvement coaches and other mental health experts who explain the positive impact of comedy on anxiety-ridden comedians and their audiences. As one expert puts it: “Comedy destigmatizes anxiety and allows discussion about it.” Revered comedian Marc Maron talks openly about how he’s come to terms with his constant and inescapable anxiety as an ongoing source of his humorous routines, while ultra-popular author/YouTuber Tiffany Jenkins, who is plagued with anxiety about her children’s safety, undergoes anxiety relief therapy in front of Lobel’s lens. Other notable participating comedians include Eva Victor, currently in the spotlight for her critically claimed directorial debut with Sorry Baby and Aparna Nancherla, author of the popular mental health memoir, Unreliable Narrator: Me Myself and Imposter Syndrome. While yielding lots of mood-lifting laughs, Anxiety Club also provides a timely, relevant, relatable and easily accessible platform for viewers to reflect upon and discuss their own anxiety — a painfully prevalent condition in our current civil and cultural circumstances.
Cate Marquis When you picture a typical stand-up comic, do you see a jittery funny guy riddled with anxiety? Anxiety and comedy seem to go hand-and-hand, but are comics really more filled with anxieties than the rest of us? This is one of the questions asked in filmmaker Wendy Lobel’s documentary Anxiety Club. The entertaining and insightful documentary features several stand-up comics (including Mark Maron, Tiffany Jenkins, Aparna Nancherla, and Eva Victor, director/writer and star of Sorry Baby), who talk about their anxieties and how they color their humor. The documentary also periodically interjects ample samplings of comedy club performances, adding plenty of laughs. It keeps humor in the fore while prodding us to think about where that humor comes from. In the documentary, comic Mark Maron maintains that comics are no more prone to anxiety than anyone else, it is just that they talk about it in their comedy. Part of why anxieties work for comedy is because they are such a common experience, even if a comic’s individual anxieties or how they handle them may be laughably unique. Anxiety Club is entertaining, both funny and thought-provoking, especially when it adds the unexpected element of a few of the comics talking to their therapists about those anxieties. High Anxiety, anyone?
FILM DETAILS:
Title: Anxiety Club
Director: Wendy Lobel
Release Date: August 15, 2025
Running Time: 86 minutes
Language: English
Screenwriter: Wendy Lobel (documentary)
Lead Performers: Marc Maron, Tiffany Jenkins, Aparna Nacherla. Eve Victor, Joe List
Distribution Company: Jolt
AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Pam Grady, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore
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Edited by Jennifer Merin
