The narrative draws from archival footage, voice messages, and interviews with his mother Mary Guibert and ex-girlfriends Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, alongside bandmates and peers like Aimee Mann and Ben Harper. It explores traditional themes of paternal abandonment, fame's pressures, creative struggles, and personal relationships without centering identity politics or systemic critiques as the premise.

Director Amy Berg incorporates perspectives from women in Buckley's life and references his admiration for artists such as Nina Simone and Judy Garland, along with occasional labels describing him as a pre-woke feminist, yet these elements stay secondary to the core biographical focus. Minor mentions of misogyny in portrayals of ex-girlfriends and verbal references to sexism and homophobia appear in the film but are presented as peripheral asides that receive condemnation without driving the story. No established characters undergo race or gender swaps, no LGBTQ+ arcs form a central thread, and casting follows standard documentary practice with all participants appearing as themselves rather than through any DEI-driven alterations. The result keeps ideological content limited and incidental, preserving the documentary's emphasis on Buckley's music and personal history over any activist framing.