The reputation of Philip K. Dick, a writer of science fiction that explored the most basic questions of human existence, has only grown since his death in 1982. So, too, has the enigma surrounding his life. After producing the bulk of the work published in his lifetime in a Benzedrine fever, Dick spent much of the '70s sorting out a series of troubling events, from an unsolved break-in at his home to a mysterious pink beam that flowed to his third eye. That enigma remains more or less intact despite the best efforts of Mark Steensland's reverent new documentary, The Gospel According To Philip K. Dick. Relying almost exclusively on talking-head interviews with friends and admirers, Steensland offers quite a bit of explanation but little insight, even failing to provide much background on Dick for newcomers. However clumsy and unsatisfying the film, in a way it's strangely appropriate that the life of a writer so concerned with the slipperiness of identity would end up reduced to so many different perspectives. Dick's friends speak with some amusement of his conviction that he would die after receiving a lethal, anonymous letter—what he called "the Xerox missive"—but they also insist that he remained sane at all times. It's hard to imagine such a man lending himself to encapsulation within a documentary. It's just as hard, however, to imagine that this one couldn't provide more, as Steensland pumps up the droning electronic music, brings on the cheap animation, or fails to cut away from the philipkdick.com webmaster's detailed description of what seems like every feature of the site. Gospel concludes with the words, "Now go read some PKD," and it says much about Steensland's subject that, by film's end, that still seems like good advice.