Search for truth lands between fact and fantasy

Army scientist Frank Olson plunged to his death from a Manhattan hotel window in 1953. The authorities deemed it a suicide. His son contends he was murdered by the CIA.

Director Errol Morris examines both possibilities in painstaking detail — exploring Eric Olson’s lifelong obsession with discovering the truth surrounding his father’s mysterious death — in “Wormwood,” a six-episode docu-series available for streaming on Netflix.

In Morris’ hands, it’s as much a true-crime whodunit as a conspiracy theorist’s dream come true, replete with covert, Cold War-era CIA operations, chemical and psychological warfare, government espionage and statesponsored murder.

The results are a mixed bag of gripping narratives and thinly sourced theories, firsthand accounts and cinematic recreations, exhaustive research and flagrant conjecture.

Morris upended the world of documentary filmmaking with 1988’s “The Thin Blue Line,” a masterpiece that elevated (or, some would say, compromised) the medium and helped free an innocent man serving a death sentence for murders he did not commit. Morris deviated from the traditional, just-the-facts approach with his use of fictional, dramatic re-creations and speculative scenarios, making his own theories central to the theme.

Re-enactments are now a standard tool of the trade on truecrime networks such as Oxygen and Investigation Discovery. But in the hands of less-artful directors, dramatizations by amateur actors are often distracting.

With “Wormwood,” Morris reclaims the approach he popularized by employing accomplished performers such as Molly Parker, Tim Blake Nelson, Peter Sarsgaard and Bob Balaban to bridge the gap between fact, presumption and fantasy.

Eric Olson claims that, in the weeks before his father’s death, Frank Olson became part of a CIA experiment when he was unwittingly fed LSD. Frank had been working on a topsecret project but had become disillusioned with the agency he worked for. He reacted poorly to the drug and was deemed unstable and a potential threat to CIA security.

As absurd as it sounds, documents uncovered through the years by journalists such as Seymour Hersh validate many of Olson’s claims. Reams of formerly classified papers revealed that his father was, indeed, part of an LSD experiment, and the experience triggered a deep depression that caused Olson to take his own life. The family was paid $750,000 in compensation by the government.

Eric Olson, however, makes the case that his father was murdered and backs up his claim with decades’ worth of convincing research.

Olson is an awkward yet brilliant psychotherapy researcher who spent his best years consumed with his father’s death. He’s not a warm figure, so sticking with him means becoming invested in his quest.

But he’s an irresistible figure for the conspiracy-minded: “He was losing control,” explains Eric of his father, “and there’s a premium placed on control,” he says of the CIA.

“Wormwood” is a son’s journey to find closure that makes this absorbing series worth your time.