Noah Kahan

Michael Venn, contributor

Noah Kahan: Out of Body works because it never feels like a rising star's vehicle for their new album. It feels like a young songwriter trying to make sense of what happens when private pain suddenly becomes public success. Even though Noah worked hard to get to where he is today, there’s no false mythology here, no polished “look how far I’ve come” narrative. Instead, the documentary leans into what made Noah Kahan matter in the first place… his lyrical honesty, relatability, and effortlessly catchy melodies.
 

What comes through strongest is the music itself. Kahan writes with the instincts of someone who understands his rural landscape as emotion. His songs carry the emotional weight and weather of Vermont and New Hampshire, cold seasons, isolation, family tension, nostalgia, and that uniquely rural charm of loving where you come from while also feeling trapped by it and the need to escape it, only to want to go right back home once you've been away long enough to relize it's where you belong. His melodies are direct and unpretentious, but underneath them is the real truth. He knows how to make loneliness sound universal, how to turn his anxiety into something relatable, and how to make stadiums of people sing along to it at full volume.
 

One of the more effective things about this film is the use of old family videos from when Noah and his siblings were young. I’m so happy that, regardless of how stressed his parents were with 4 young kids in the house, they made sure to capture all the chaos of their family on video. The film is especially effective when it traces how much his upbringing shaped his voice. New England is not just the scenery in Noah Kahan’s music, it’s his psychology. The long winters, the distance between people, the self-reliance, and the quiet emotional codes families often live by. He writes from that world without mocking it or romanticizing it. That balance is rare. He understands that home can be both comfort and an open wound.  I especially enjoyed watching him remember the songs that he had written the lyrics for on the desk in his room. There is a level of honesty and relatability to the kid who was dreaming of his musical future, scribbling song lyrics on his desk. It’s such a perfect reminder of a time and place in his personal journey.
 

One of the most touching moments in the film comes before what Noah refers to as his biggest show ever in his life, performing at Fenway Park, In Boston, MA. Kahan takes time to listen to and talk with Zuza, a young girl who says that his music has gotten her through her treatment. During their exchange, he tells her that she got herself through those times, but that he was honored that his music helped her in any way. Then he plays her favorite song, “Forever”,  just for her, backstage before the biggest show of his life, and as a viewer, I was moved to tears. It’s a small scene, but it says everything about who he is. There’s no spectacle, no attempt to make it into some grand gesture. It’s just genuine kindness and an instinctive understanding of what music can mean to someone. In a film about sudden fame and growing audiences, that moment reminds you that real connection still happens one person at a time.
 

What separates Kahan from many of his peers is how openly he speaks about his mental health. He doesn’t package his struggles into branding language or use vulnerability as performance. He talks about anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, insecurity, and the emotional dislocation that can come with success in a way that feels real and unscripted. This is a topic that is so relatable for so many people, and the fact that he talks about it so openly on camera is refeshing. That kind of honesty matters, especially for younger fans who are often handed curated versions of resilience instead of the real thing.
 

I love that this documentary also gives much deserved attention to The Busyhead Project, his charity focused on mental health support and access. And I love that he actually formed this charity to begin with. It’s an extension of the same values found in the songs… empathy, usefulness, and refusing to pretend people should suffer in silence. In a culture full of fake symbolic gestures for social media likes and views, it feels meaningful to see someone trying to create real, honest connection into actual help.
 

In the end, the documentary succeeds because Noah Kahan still seems grounded in the person he was before fame arrived. The venues are bigger now, but the center of the music remains the same: a thoughtful kid from Vermont writing honest songs about pain, memory, and survival with enough humility to tell the truth.