Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart’ On HBO Max, Where the Best-Selling Author Teaches Us How to Connect with Each Other (And Ourselves)

Despite being best known for her work on paper, Brené Brown is no stranger to the spotlight; the best-selling author has given viral TED talks, currently hosts her own podcasts, and even appeared as herself in Netflix comedy Wine Country. The shame expert, researcher, and queen of self-help now makes her own docuseries debut in Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart on HBO Max, where she shares the framework for forming meaningful connections with ourselves, others, and the world around us. The 5-episode series is streaming now. 

BRENÉ BROWN: ATLAS OF THE HEART: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Brené Brown introduces herself and the series to us.

The Gist: It’s no secret that we’re all pretty disconnected from each other (and ourselves) these days. The pandemic pushed us all into isolation like never before, damaging the links to the outside world that have always been such a crucial element of survival. Brené Brown understands this – and the implications of it all – better than most. The last few years have forced us to reconcile with our lack of emotional education, and the fact that we don’t have the language to describe our feelings. (Brown illustrates this later when she reveals that on average, we can only recognize about 3 emotions in ourselves; happy, sad, and pissed off). In contrast, Brown plans on helping us to identify and name 30 emotions over the course of this series, and to educate us about a framework for meaningful connection.

“How do we cultivate meaningful connection with ourselves and each other?” Brown asks. It’s this big question that will fuel the five installments of Atlas of the Heart. This first episode, “The Language of Emotion and Human Experience”, starts to nudge us in the direction of labeling emotions. She utilizes clips from films like Harry Potter, Avengers: Endgame, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Forrest Gump, to name a few, and they all elicit very specific emotional responses. “The limits of our language literally shape how we feel every day because we do not have the words,” Brown notes. She wants to give us the language to break free of these limits. This is only the beginning of our journey to learn how to connect with ourselves and each other, and Brown has more than a few tricks up her sleeve in the remaining episodes.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart feels like the first show of its kind, though it definitely has some self-help-y TED Talk vibes.

Our Take: Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart basically feels like an extended TED Talk. This is not a dig – there’s just not really any other way to describe it. She’s set up in an auditorium with an eager, engaged audience, much like we’re used to seeing her in TED Talks like this one, and she’s got her little clicker to go through slides and queue up clips when needed. In the hands of many other people, this format might not work, but it’s where Brown soars. Her use of film and TV clips and pieces of art to illustrate points might occasionally feel corny, but it’s obviously effective; the quote she shares from Roger Ebert about movies being “empathy machines” is undeniable. She gets an enthusiastic response from her audience every time she shares a montage of clips and probes them for their emotional reactions. Brown is a teacher through and through, able to pull the deeper meaning out of each of her examples.

A big part of why Atlas of the Heart works as well as it does is Brown’s ability to balance her lovely, self-deprecating sense of humor with more intense subject matter. In combining personal stories and expert testimony with film and television clips and audience interaction, Brown creates an experience that feels both educational and personal – a winning combination. This stuff is touchy-feely, and that’s what makes it so compelling. It’s easy to feel like this kind of thing might end up going in the direction of an overly positive Tony Robbins-esque self-help seminar, but instead Brown hopes to eradicate this obsession with relentless positivity and push us towards emotional intelligence. Brown’s radical notion that learning how to identify our emotions can change the entire way we live our lives is a fascinating one. Atlas of the Heart will certainly not be for everyone, but for those of us looking to get more in touch with ourselves – especially following the isolation of the COVID pandemic – it may be a much needed lesson and learning to connect again.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Brown sets up her next episode and thanks her audience.

Most Pilot-y Line: Even the introductory lines like “I’ve spent 25 years trying to answer questions about what it means to be human, and there is nothing more human than emotion,” manage not to feel too pilot-y because of the overall tone of the series.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite its self-help conference vibes and potential to go in a cringeworthy direction, Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart feels like a genuine attempt to help people. Brown’s body of work speaks for itself, and this series feels like a natural continuation of it all.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.