‘Robin’s Wish’ Documentary Looks at Comedian Robin Williams’ Struggle with Neurological Brain Disease

“Robin’s Wish,” a documentary detailing the tragic death of comedian Robin Williams and the challenges he faced battling neurological brain disease, was released September 1, 2020. The movie explains what really happened to him at the end of his life, and it reveals the power behind the mind of one of the greatest entertainers.

Williams’ film, TV, and stand-up comedy appearances were loved by millions across the globe. People were shocked and saddened when they heard on August 11, 2014, that he had committed suicide. He was 63 years old.

While there was much speculation as to why it happened — depression, anxiety, drugs, financial troubles — an autopsy revealed that he had been suffering from Lewy body dementia. His widow, Susan Schnieder Williams, said the coroner’s report was “the beginning of understanding what had really gone on.”

Lewy body dementia is the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer's disease. Protein deposits, called Lewy bodies, develop in nerve cells in the brain regions involved in thinking, memory, and movement (motor control).

Bruce Miller, M.D., director of the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-director of the Global Brain Health Institute, explains in the movie that Lewy body dementia is a devastating illness that increases anxiety and self-doubt, and can also cause delusions in someone who has never experienced them before.

Williams was no longer himself, the fate of those who develop these rare, neurological brain disorders, including frontotemporal degeneration. His widow said he told her, "I just want to reboot my brain."

“Robin’s Wish” is not available to live-stream on services like Netflix, but only to purchase or rent from online on-demand stores including, but not limited to, Google Play, Apple’s iTunes, IMDb, and Amazon Prime Video. (On Amazon it is a separate purchase, rather than part of the standard Prime subscription.)