This is a rather interesting social experiment from Vikram Gandhi that is, at its core, essentially an examination of the placebo effect within the religious community.

The film starts by documenting how Gandhi had come to lose the faith that he'd grown up with after meeting some self-professed spiritual leaders and witnessing their manipulative ways. With the help of two friends, he hatches a plan wherein he himself impersonates guru Kumaré, just-arrived from India, and intends to infiltrate yoga circles in Arizona with the hope of gaining followers. He also states from the outset that the plan will end with him revealing himself as a fraud.

As a non-believer myself, the premise of this film had me pretty much right…

While never as raunchy and politically incorrect as the myriad cinematic incarnations of Sacha Baren Cohen (“Borat,” “Bruno”), Vikram Gandhi’s “Kumare” matches Cohen’s committal to becoming a character in this documentary of a faux guru who tries to expose phony, New Age self-help svengali who parade around with the promise of answers and enlightenment for people in search of them.

Gandhi grows out his beard, dons traditional garb and masquerades as “Sri Kumare,” a guru providing yoga to the masses. His concocted backstory leads a host of followers to believe he is a spiritual fountainhead from which eternal truths spring and cascade into their own consciousness. We see him explain away numerous issues brought to him by his patrons. We…

This film is an outstanding, yet daring approach to a social and spiritual experiment. It unveils how gullible people in need can be and how they can be played. If that were the message of this film alone it would still be a kind of warning to look a little deeper before you leap into something blindly.

The experiment becomes truly interesting once Vikram (who is playing Kumare) begins to feel a connection with his "students". As his followers are learning from him (even if it is fabricated lessons) he begins to care for them and feel more connections than he has in his normal life. He realizes that he must unveil who he really is, but becomes extremely hesitant…