American Symphony

American Symphony is a documentary about the musician Jon Batiste and his wife, the writer Suleika Jaouad, during a period when both their careers and their personal lives are under strain. Batiste sets out to compose a symphony, a large-scale work that demands sustained attention, while Jaouad receives treatment for a recurrence of leukemia. The film follows the two of them as illness, hospital routines and creative ambition run alongside each other, and it also shows Batiste dealing with anxiety and panic attacks behind his public role as a cheerful performer.

Matthew Heineman directed the film, which follows Cartel Land and A Private War in his filmography. Heineman also produced alongside Lauren Domino and Joedan Okun. Batiste and Jaouad appear as themselves, with Lindsey Byrnes also credited; Anna Wintour, Jonathan Dinklage and Louis Cato appear through archive footage.

Released in 2023 and running 104 minutes, the film drew a critics' rating of 7.9/10 from 51 reviews, noticeably higher than its audience scores of 6.8/10 on IMDb from roughly 4,500 votes and 6.5/10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample. That gap suggests reviewers responded more strongly than general viewers did to this intimate portrait of a marriage tested by illness and of music made in difficult circumstances.