"An autobiographical reflection on his unassuming name leads the filmmaker down a wayward path through family photographs, personal archives, and internet searches. Alternately wry and wistful, peppered with Smith’s characteristically droll commentary, Being John Smith flits between self-deprecation and cris de coeur, offering quietly hilarious observations on Smith’s lower-middle-class origins and career as an avant-garde cinema luminary as well as unexpectedly melancholic impressions on age and extinction." –Currents, New York Film Festival