Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed’ on HBO Max, Marking The Return Of The Network’s Music Box Documentary Series 

Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed (HBO Max) is the next chapter in the network’s Music Box anthology series, executive produced by Bill Simmons, where first season subjects included Alanis Morrisette, DMX, and Kenny G. Here, director Sam Jones profiles the Alabama-born Isbell, a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter with an Americana sound steeped in country music tradition, soul, and Southern rock. 

JASON ISBELL: RUNNING WITH OUR EYES CLOSED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: Jason Isbell, we quickly learn in Running With Our Eyes Closed, can only ever be who he is. As a child of the American South, of parents who eventually divorced, and of Chubby Teenage Him cranking a Fender Stratocaster through his amp whenever their arguing got too loud, Isbell learned that playing the guitar “stopped the wheels from spinning.” It assuaged his anxieties. But that doesn’t mean they went away. And in late 2019, at a Nashville recording studio with his band the 400 Unit, Running captures Isbell as he presents the new songs he’s been writing and they start to work up arrangements. The singer-songwriter is a mixture of easygoing and exacting, of Southern charm and obsessive work ethic. He’s also “a ball of anxiousness.” Amanda Shires knows Isbell best – the singer, songwriter and violinist married him in 2013. But their relationship is tested as they simultaneously collaborate in the studio and navigate life at home with their preschool-age daughter.

Shires and the people in Isbell’s life, everyone – his parents, his bandmates, his former bandmates, his manager — they all agree that he can be a mercurial sort. But Jason Isbell is the guy who agrees with that the most. His sobriety, which came about in 2012, has continued to inform his songwriting, and is a topic as he and Shires discuss him maybe developing a hobby. After all, somebody who plays guitar all day for work isn’t going to blow off steam at home by…playing more guitar. In the interview segments presented in stark, revealing black and white, the couple display a remarkable candor in their willingness to leave everything about their relationship right on the table. 

Whether Isbell ever takes up basket weaving or building ships in a bottle will have to wait until the next documentary, because instead, Running With Our Eyes Closed is forced to confront COVID-19 and pandemic lockdowns. With the rollout derailed for Reunions, their new record, everybody in the band collectively settles in for that long and undefined time at home. The isolation can breed self-doubt. But you know, weather the storm. Get family gardening time on film, and your daughter feeding the little birds on your property. And keep music close at hand, a constant mirror on the experience  of life.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Running With Our Eyes Closed director Sam Jones also helmed Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (HBO Max). Skating and rocking: different disciplines, to be sure. But pursuit of craft, obsession, personal struggle, remorse and redemption are all still in play. The Isbell and Hawk docs also share exec producers in Mark and Jay Duplass.      

Performance Worth Watching: Isbell and Shires’ adorable daughter Mercy gets major points. But 400 Unit bassist Jimbo Hart also speaks a little to what everybody was feeling during the global pandemic. The career touring musician is seen just endlessly mowing his lawn, because being on his John Deere is the closest thing to being on the road. “It doesn’t feel right,” Hart tells the camera. “It’s unsettling, you know? I feel like I should be on tour. My body is telling me I should have wheels underneath me.”

Memorable Dialogue: Jason Isbell says it was definitely shocking when he got bounced from Drive-By Truckers in 2007, when his drinking had gotten out of control. “But now I look back and think, ‘Yeah, I would’ve fired that guy, too.’”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Maybe what makes Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed feel so intimate is how it so rarely cuts away. While there’s valuable commentary from Isbell’s longtime manager Traci Thomas, and Drive-By Truckers founder Patterson Hood, the guy who hired and fired Isbell, director Sam Jones otherwise stays completely in the singer and songwriter’s inner circle. No cuts to testimonials from peers here, or takes from critics. It’s just the process of writing songs and making a record, and making life and relationships work at the same time, which is what makes all of the scenes between Isbell and Amanda Shires completely electric. Performing, of course – there’s a nice segment where they sing a beautiful version of “Tired of Traveling Alone” in New York City. But Running With Our Eyes Closed is largely ensconced in a Nashville recording studio, where husband and wife and child stuff inevitably intersects with work stuff. And breathing room is at a premium. The film keeps close as their different personalities clash after an argument, and bounces powerfully between Isbell recording a song full of his typically confessional lyrics and Shires reading an email full of heartbreaking lines to which “Mr. Husband” never replied. “Songwriting has gotten harder for me as time has gone on,” Isbell says, “just because I won’t accept things I used to accept.” Or as Hood puts it, “Jason is extremely hard on himself, and it can be painful for everyone around him.” 

That intimacy is true of the music here, too. The songs that became Reunions, released to acclaim during COVID, are seen before they’re heard, appearing in Jason Isbell’s handwritten notebooks and then emerging at RCA Studios with Isbell, the 400 Unit, and producer Dave Cobb. “Something that I have always liked is hearing a really good musician play a song before they actually know it,” Isbell says. And “Running With Our Eyes Closed” goes from band meeting and number chart writing to fully plugged in and alive, its heart beating and lungs breathing. It’s cool to see the whole thing grow. And even as Running switches gears into its life during lockdown phase, it keeps music close at hand, with footage of a livestreamed May 2020 release show for Reunions – fans chimed in on Zoom; everybody was making the best of it – and Isbell and Shires singing and performing at home in their farmhouse’s upstairs sunroom.    

Our Call: STREAM IT. The first season of HBO’s Music Box anthology series established its reputation for deeply-told music documentaries. Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed keeps the streak alive with its engrossing music sequences and undeniable emotional heft.  

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges