Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste in American Symphony (Netflix)

In April 2022, the multitalented musician Jon Batiste was honored not with just one Grammy, but with five (he was nominated for 11), and became the first Black musician to win Album of the Year since Herbie Hancock in 2008. However, his victories were something of a surprise. His album win was chosen over fellow nominees Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, and Billie Eilish. He was by no means a conventional pop star. This was one more high point in a career that was already soaring. In addition to his much-lauded studio albums, he had also composed the score for Pixar’s film Soul, served as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and he was in the process of composing a symphony to be performed at Carnegie Hall.

Batiste is also the partner of the writer Suleika Jaouad, known for her column “Life Interrupted” in The New York Times, in which she frankly detailed her struggles with a rare form of leukemia. Her illness, which had been in remission for close to a decade, returned in 2021, and she was forced to undergo a second bone marrow transplant.

American Symphony offers a window into their lives at this fraught time. There is no narration—what we learn is told to us directly by Batiste or Jaouad or through TV show clips. The bulk of the documentary observes the two of them both in public and in private: in concerts and rehearsals, at the hospital, chatting with each other on FaceTime while he’s on tour. Their anxieties, and the various pressures placed on them, are evident. Some of the most fascinating moments occur when Batiste discusses his frustration with the ways critics pigeonhole him, and how it chafes against his all-enveloping ambitions—he has always worn multiple hats and embraced multiple genres.

Though there are moments of pain and fear (challenging talks with her doctor, a beaten down Batiste talking to his therapist over the phone while he lies in bed), what filmmaker Matthew Heineman, and perhaps also the subjects, have chosen to emphasize is strength. They both meet this challenging period of life, one of emotional extremes, with courage and strength.

The film succeeds as an introduction to Batiste’s incredible musical energy, of his overall artistic vision, and as a suggestion of the conflicting states of mind he and Jaouad experienced during this time. Still, I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of his music, for what we do see comes across more as a promotion of his work rather than an analysis. While about half of what we hear about the purpose of art is poignant, much of it is banal. Additionally, I couldn’t help feeling that many arguments and moments of extreme darkness had been edited out in order to emphasize resilience. This is perhaps as it should be (you can’t blame someone for not wanting to be on camera when they are seriously ill, and the couple’s lives are their own to share or not), but it leaves the film feeling more than a little stage-managed.