A Man Named Pearl

Overlong by half and upbeat to a fault, this profile of topiarist Pearl Fryar doesn’t know the meaning of too much of a good thing. It’s not Fryar’s fault; the proud, self-taught South Carolinian, whose tree-and-shrub sculptures evoke the alienscapes of pulp sci-fi illustrator Richard M. Powers by way of Dr. Seuss, is a worthy subject. But filmmakers Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson doggedly avoid any hint of friction in Fryar’s life, thus flattening their tale into plodding, dimensionless hagiography.