Publication Date: 08-30-2026

Meet the Mormons (2015) review

Dir. Blair Treu

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★½

Meet the Mormons is shameless propaganda for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints just by its very smiley, antiseptic nature. It cherry-picks six followers of the Mormon religion and shows their lives, their families, and their faith, in addition to how their lives have been touched by Mormonism. Its “Mormons are people too” message is weightless even by propaganda standards, and unless you lack the ability to believe that there are indeed good-natured people of all religions, then there’s nothing here for you whatsoever.

The first major issue with the documentary is how it positions its subjects. Its goal is to humanize them, but, paradoxically, it dehumanizes them by making their stories out to be extraordinary by the very nature of being ordinary. We see these people with the depth of an episode of reality TV, never reaching past the surface to see these people other than poster-boys and girls for what this Latter-Day Saints-funded documentary wants us to see. The Church wants you to see these six as the next candidates for everlasting life and Sainthood rather than human beings, so it seems. Everything, from the interviews with these individuals, the time we see them share together with their families, and the monologues they deliver on camera, feels cloyingly artificial and scripted to provide one with not a realistic view into Mormonism, but a bought-and-paid for PSA about the religion.

Some of the individuals we meet, in and of themselves, do not seem like bad people, but are captured under such a manipulated light that it’s difficult to believe what we see is the entirety of them as a whole, or even an accurate summation. For example, there’s Ken Niumataolo, the head coach of the United States Naval Academy’s football team, who not only seems to be the shining example that people of minority religions are good, but that people from the sports world speak entirely in clichés and act for the cameras at all times. Then there’s Jermaine Sullivan, a bishop for his church in Atlanta, Georgia who, again, feels like the fabled idea of a bishop just by his very nature of interacting with strangers, constantly smiling and remaining positive, and never finding himself very troubled by his immense responsibility.

Meet the Mormons peddles this strained, fantastical picture of reality in such a precious manner that it’s hard to take really any of it, or its subjects, seriously. On top of a film that opens with a woman exposing the American public for its ignorance on Mormonism and those who follow its practices, it does nothing to speak of what Mormons believe in, the history of the Prophet Joseph Smith, or why the religion has found itself the butt of every joke in popular culture. We are just shown that six wealthy, cherry-picked Mormons are allegedly functional, likable people despite being part of a minority religion. If that note surprises you even a little bit, then you’re the ignorant soul this film is ostensibly trying to reach. Most with a lick of human empathy and understanding can rest comfortably knowing that turning the other check to this documentary is a wise choice.

NOTE: As of this writing, Meet the Mormons is available to watch on YouTube, free of charge.

Directed by: Blair Treu.