The music industry has the resources that kids surely need to continue living, staying out of trouble, and fighting the demons and leeches that affect a young rap star. The documentary doesn’t point fingers or offer too many explanations it also doesn’t specify exactly what the industry can do to help young kids like Juice. In fact, it is the opposite: Into the Abyss suggests that all the traveling, touring, and recording while traveling made for a deleterious lifestyle for someone of any age, let alone a 21-year-old struggling with anxiety and depression. The documentary knows it is showing an addict, but it never lacks empathy for him. Nobody talks there’s a casualness about it all. There’s an especially upsetting scene where he crushes pills and uses a $20 bill to snort up the powder. The documentary doesn’t shy away from Juice’s pill-popping far from it. If XXXTentacion showed emo rap’s dark side and problematic elements, then Juice WRLD showed why it was becoming a tidal wave in the industry. He was someone with joy in him and a sense of community that was infectious. He wrote sad songs but was never smothered by his sadness. Some of the best scenes are Juice talking to the camera about his rise, or doing everyday things like telling a facetious story that he and his girlfriend met at law school. It also shows his soft and enigmatic side. At one point, he says, “I grew up on rock, rap, and heavy metal/Now I got my pedal to the metal.” You believe him. The documentary shows all sides of his musicality. Juice was hip-hop through and through, and used his chameleonic capacity to his benefit. Some rappers are making pop punk and latching onto hip-hop as a way to gain more streams. The first scene is a three-minute freestyle that ends with “Nobody ever felt the pain I felt/So I share it, put it out in the world, I’m not embarrassed.” In one freestyle, he name drops Tupac and Nas. Into the Abyss shows his limitless ability to freestyle entire songs. Despite not being above a trite bar, like the only thing on his iPod growing up was Blink-182, he had a natural charisma and love of the camera that endeared him to fans. Juice was Soundcloud rap’s greatest hope and champion, someone who could cross over with his pop sensibilities, innate freestyle ability, and magnetic voice.
The visuals do the explaining for you, allowing you to come up with your own thoughts and conclusions. The visual style, free-flowing and light on talking heads, gives the film a level of authenticity that feels lived-in.
And he has love around him rarely is Juice without friends, managers, and his girlfriend Ally. It’s a peek behind the curtain at the life of a budding superstar, showing the respect Juice had from older figures - at one point Young Thug calls him, and it looks like they have a genuine rapport already - and his down-to-earth personality.
To be clear, the movie is about a lot more than Juice’s drug use.