New documentary Group Therapy brings together six of today’s leading stand-up comedians for a candid, touching and humorous conversation revealing the connections between their professional comedy journeys and overcoming their mental health struggles. Host Neil Patrick Harris guides comic personalities Tig Notaro, Nicole Byer, Mike Birbiglia, London Hughes, Gary Gulman and Atsuko Okatsuka through a group therapy session in front of a live audience. Striking a delicate balance between depth and levity, they take the audience on an emotional journey, shifting from tears to laughter and back again, a powerful reminder of the therapeutic power of sharing.
Stand-up comedians are known for baring their souls to massive audiences in the name of entertainment and Group Therapy–recently released on Prime Video–takes it further by showing that sharing our struggles is a crucial first step in protecting mental health.
Co-Produced by AXA and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat–in collaboration with WPP’s Group M Motion, Wavemaker and creative agency VML–the “docu-therapy” brings together six-star comedians to share their mental health struggles and encourage everyone to do so, because “sharing is therapeutic”.
Although each cast member has a very different story, their shared experience of mental health issues is what unites them. Mike Birbiglia openly discusses his struggles with sleep disorders and anxiety. Gary Gulman is vocal about his life-long battle with depression, Nicole Byer reflects on her experiences with grief and her evolving relationship with body image and societal expectations.
Besides the cast’s revelations, one of the most powerful things about the film is that it accompanies a worldwide mental health risk prevention initiative by one of the world’s leading global health insurers – AXA. The 90 minute “docu-therapy” was co-produced by AXA and Hartbeat, in collaboration with WPP, which developed the concept with Hartbeat, its award-winning team and director Neil Berkeley. Founded by Kevin Hart, the entertainment company Hartbeat creates content and experiences at the intersection of comedy and culture.
Dimitri Guerassimov, CCO, VML France says of the project: “When you set out to make a film like Group Therapy, you’re relying on the artists themselves to feel comfortable enough to share their stories. Gary Gulman talks about his depression as part of his act, and Tig Notaro opened up a conversation about breast cancer as part of hers, so hearing other comedians such as London Hughes and Nicole Byer, discuss the racism they’ve faced or how they feel about their bodies, is really quite remarkable. Comedians often use humour to tell true stories, and in that room, they were able very quickly to get to the heart of the issues. That’s what makes watching it so compelling – hearing their stories being told and received in such an extraordinary, touching and oftentimes hilarious, way.
You can tell when somebody is being authentic, and that’s what an audience is looking for today. The documentary isn’t overproduced – it’s six people, and the host Neil Patrick Harris – sitting in a circle on chairs having a conversation. That’s it. The setting is sparse and so it’s their stories that fill the room. Let people talk, and they will surprise you. One of the interesting things about films like Group Therapy is that it’s entertainment and people love to watch films that make them laugh and feel something – but it’s also unfolding a huge and important message. And breaking open conversations in a way that other forms of communication are not able to at the moment. Entertainment is becoming a powerful tool to influence people in a positive way, and that’s what we’re really seeing happening right now with films like Group Therapy.”
Following its critically lauded premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, Group Therapy has gone on to showcase at global film festivals, including The American Film Institute Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, GlobeDocs Documentary Film Festival, and the inaugural Tribeca Lisbon Film Festival.
More than an award-winning documentary and a boundary-pushing strategy for an insurance brand, Group Therapyrepresents a unique mental health initiative – at a crucial time when almost one-third of the global population is currently experiencing a mental health condition.
The documentary follows the release of the 5th edition of AXA’s Mind Health report, which paints a worrying picture of the global mental health crisis. Across 16 surveyed countries, 32% of respondents reported experiencing mental health conditions, and younger people are particularly impacted.
Neil Berkley, director, Group Therapy says: “‘Sharing is therapeutic’ was always our north star in terms of the message we wanted to get across: we wanted to put both the comedians and the audience in a safe place where they could share. When we first made this documentary, we called it an experiment, because it’s a unique concept. There were never any mandates from AXA to talk about this or do that or mention the brand collaboration aspect in the film.”
Virginie Berçot, global brand director, AXA adds: “This documentary was born out of a massive international survey we commissioned on mental health. We wanted to find out what sort of challenges people were facing, and the results were alarming. The first step to dealing with mental health problems is to start talking about it with your family, your friends, your co-workers. Sharing is therapeutic. As an insurer, we wanted to get across that message in a really distinctive way that stands out and grabs people’s attention – and with Group Therapy, I think we’ve achieved that.”
Ahead of the film’s release on Prime Video, AXA created a series of short video teasers and static banners that will run across Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV and on paid social media including Meta. The campaign, which aims to drive audiences to AXA’s mental health initiatives on a dedicated ‘Mind Health’ landing page, spans three sets of 15- and 20-second videos featuring footage and punchlines from the Group Therapy documentary, alongside a series of real-life scenarios where therapeutic sharing can happen – from chatting to grandparents round the dinner table or sports teammates in the locker room – to deliver the campaign message that ‘Therapy starts with a talk’. The initiative is connected to AXA’s digital and social ecosystem and drives people to the online Mind Health Self-Check.
Watch the “Group Therapy” trailer here.
