Jeff Buckley Never Got to Figure Out Jeff Buckley

With a subject as endlessly mysterious as Jeff Buckley, even a very by-the-book music documentary can be significant. "It's Never Over: Jeff Buckley," is just that—the first canonical entry to provide insight into the man behind the myth, the celestial voice, the pouty portraits, and the death by drowning in the Mississippi River at age 30.

Director Amy Berg's comprehensive access—to Buckley's mother and her archive of voicemails, as well as Buckley's friends in the East Village music scene of the '90s—reveals a musician just beginning to reconcile his omnivorous interests, and a guy struggling to live up to his status as the music industry's favorite secret.

Having debuted at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (Brad Pitt is an executive producer), "It's Never Over" which is showing as part of DOC NYC Summer Selects at the IFC Center this week, before heading to a wider release on August 8, unfolds with beats that will mirror just about any rock doc you've ever seen, but still satisfies. In the decades since his death, Buckley's place in pop culture has vibrated from incontrovertible icon to cult hero, as storytellers try to piece together who the man was, what he could have been, and what it all means now. 

Interviews with Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert, and two girlfriends, the theater artist Rebecca Moore and musician Joan Wasser, form the backbone of "It's Never Over." In place of really any stylistic flair, Berg leaves it to the women's love for Buckley (palpable) to immerse the viewer. (That and some noodly animations, which are less affecting.)