Though its generic title may evoke memories of the archaic science videos you fell asleep to in grade school, Schwartzberg’s film quickly proves to be one of the year’s most mind-blowing, soul-cleansing and yes, immensely entertaining triumphs. With the Amazon rainforest on fire and no discernible endgame for our dependency on fossil fuels, this picture provides a beacon of hope that feels neither hollow nor forced. Its illustration of fungi’s resilience is dazzling on both a visual and intellectual level, while affirming with matter-of-fact clarity that we, as a species, must evolve with nature in order to prevent our own extinction.

In a celestial voice suggesting Captain Marvel minus the sarcasm, narrator Brie Larson articulates the perspective of mushrooms—defined as the fruiting bodies of fungi—yet it is the documentary’s most engaging human subject, mycologist Paul Stamets, who channels their very essence. I must disclose that Stamets’ brother, Bill, is a longtime colleague and RogerEbert.com contributor who shares his sibling’s inquisitive nature. He’ll often lean toward me at the end of a screening and make an observation so out of left field that it might as well have flown in from a separate ballpark. It is this innate gift of viewing the world from a wholly original and analytical angle that can lead to visionary and transformative change, as illustrated by such trailblazing figures as Temple Grandin and Greta Thunberg, whose placement on the autism spectrum has been dubbed their superpower.

Having endured a conservative upbringing that resulted in his copy of Charles T. Tart’s Altered States of Consciousness being burned by a friend’s disgruntled father, Stamets was galvanized into researching the epiphanies brought about by fungi. In an exhilarating sequence, he describes how his initial experimentation with magic mushrooms cured his stuttering, allowing him to look a woman he desired in the eye and hold a conversation with her, rather than avert his gaze. He went on to found Fungi Perfecti, a family-owned company specializing in mushroom products where its workers, as claimed by Stamets, are so unified on the same wavelength, they communicate primarily through gestures.