For a film that dispenses a lot of backstory information via intertitles, you are left with a lot of questions when the credits finally roll. For example, how in the world did Irish film-maker Sinéad O’Shea gain access to her main subject: James Cox Chambers, AKA “Fergie”, the American heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune – whom we first meet as the founding member and bankroller of a communist community of less than a dozen people in Alford, a town in rural Massachusetts. A scion of the wealthy Cox family, a liberal clan who have backed leftist causes in the past, Fergie wants to take things even further politically and is willing to use his own hefty inheritance (about $250m) to support his fellow communards’ commitment to learning, self-sustaining farm work and running a jujitsu studio and gym that won’t accept members of the police as members.

But when the group decide to protest at Elbit Systems, the Israeli-owned arms manufacturer, its actions slide into “criminal mischief and criminal trespassing”, according to reports. Several Alford members are arrested, including one Paige Belanger; O’Shea’s film cuts back and forth between interviews with Belanger and other communards and Chambers, who has scarpered to Tunisia. Although he pays for Belanger’s defence and covers other costs arising from the action, considerable rancour rises between Fergie, Paige and other former Alford community members, that O’Shea perhaps wisely doesn’t let the film get too bogged down with trying to parse.

Nevertheless, O’Shea’s admirable attempt to not take sides leaves a muddle of sorts at the centre of the story, making it unclear who or what is the real subject of the film. We are left with a messy tangle of historical fact, colourful personalities and dramatic biographies that could have made a longer film. But any way you slice it, Fergie – whose extradition to the US from Spain is being sought over his alleged support for Hamas – comes across as a compellingly weird character, a confused soul who covers himself in tattoos, discourse and delusions to hide a considerable amount of pain stemming from a traumatic adolescence. Sure, it would be easy to sneer at him and say poor little rich boy, but there’s something about his struggle for authenticity that feels timely and significant in these complex times.