ASK DR. RUTH – Review

Everyone knows Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the on-air sex therapist who speaks so frankly, but how much do you know about the personal story of this diminutive Jewish grandma who has been a darling of talk shows for decades, using her expertise as a PhD sex therapist to offer non-judgmental advice on sexual matters? Likely, not much. ASK DR. RUTH goes a way to correcting that. In the process, we again fall under the spell of this personable, lively, intelligent woman who has led an unusual life and overcome so many hardships.

Who knew Dr. Ruth, who seems so much fun, survived the Holocaust in a Swiss orphanage where as a ten-year-old she was put to work cleaning and caring for the younger children? Or that she was married several times? Or that she was an avid skier? These are among the surprises uncovered in this delightful documentary.

Director Ryan White’s illuminating, entertaining biographical film first introduces us to Dr. Ruth Westheimer in the tiny New York apartment where the nearly 90-year-old still lives, despite her financial success, before the documentary delves into her backstory. Dr. Ruth is an unlikely success story: a Holocaust survivor with a thick German accent, a prim-and-proper-looking tiny woman with a PhD in psychology who spoke on-air with bracing frankness about sex, just as America was entering the sexual revolution of the ’60s. The combination of her disarming appearance, her impeccable credentials and her plain speaking about sex made her a media celebrity and a popular favorite.

Turns out, Dr. Ruth has an unlikely personal story as well. Born in Germany near Frankfort, Karola Ruth Siegel was the beloved only child of Orthodox Jewish parents who doted on her. After the Nazis came to power, they sent her at age 10 to Switzerland by train, as part of a “kindertransport” with other Jewish children. Landing in a Swiss orphanage, the Jewish children were not welcomed and hardly had a comfortable life. The older Jewish children, including the ten-year-old, were required to work, which she did until the war ended when she was 17. With her parents vanished, she emigrated to Israel (then Palestine) where she switched her middle and first names to become Ruth K. Siegel.

The German-born, 4-foot-7 dynamo has lived in Switzerland, on a kibbutz in Israel, in Paris and in New York. After WWII interrupted her education, she went on to attend the Sorbonne and later earn a PhD from Columbia University, married three times, raised two children, and worked at Planned Parenthood. She started her career as on-air sex therapist on a late-night community radio show, Sexually Speaking. She met her last husband, the love of her life, engineer Fred Westheimer, on the ski slopes. And those are only a few of the sometimes surprising details uncovered in ASK DR. RUTH.

Director Ryan White illustrates the early phase of Dr. Ruth’s life with animated drawings based on photos of her as a girl, a cute pixie with bright eyes and a sweet smile. The animated sequences are appealing and narrated in part by excerpts from her diaries. Later phases of her life and career are illustrated with archival photos and video. Segments on her past are interspersed with footage of the present-day nonagenarian, surprisingly fit, in New York and on returns to Switzerland and Israel. The documentary also includes interviews with her children and grandchildren, old friends and colleagues, as well as a host of videos of Dr. Ruth at various events.

The documentary impresses us with Dr. Ruth’s personal story, and Dr. Ruth herself wins our affection with her energetic persona, but the film also notes that not every therapist is a fan of her on-air advice. Several note that advice based on shallow knowledge of a person gained from a call-in show can be dangerous for someone with real problems, a criticism that can be applied to all talk show therapists. However, Dr. Ruth did paved the way for the phenomenon, as she was followed by Dr. Phil and other therapists offering advice on talk shows, and she also set the trend of Dr. First Name, when early callers to her radio show struggled with pronouncing her last name.

While we learn a great deal we did not know about her, Dr. Ruth herself cautions us that she still keeps parts of her life private, and there are sides her we will never learn about, a refreshing kind of honesty in itself. Apart from a few moments of impatience, she is unfailingly good-humored, even when the documentary covers more difficult moments of her life. She keeps darker feelings under wraps, even when she visits the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, to read in their archives about the fate of her parents.

ASK DR. RUTH is an illuminating experience, a charmer of a film as lively and entertaining as its subject, and just as surprising. ASK DR. RUTH opens Friday, May 3, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars