“It reduces my trust in humanity” is how National Institute of Health (NIH) nurse and bioethicist Dr. Christine Grady describes her feelings about the abuse heaped upon her husband, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in Fauci.

For those who’ve grown frustrated with their unvaccinated fellow citizens’ egotism, stupidity, and recklessness, it’s a familiar and relatable sentiment, and one that colors John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ documentary (in select theaters Sept. 10) about the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Driven by interviews with Fauci himself, it’s an insightful portrait of a man who’s dedicated his career to helping solve some of the world’s most serious disease-related crises, as well as a celebration of the selfless courage, compassion, and open-mindedness of a physician who’s stood tall in the face of unjust vilification and threats.

Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Lou Dobbs (remember him?) all appear in Fauci, slamming the doctor in various disgusting ways and, in the process, stirring up opposition to the very figure most responsible for guiding the nation through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When Fauci describes recently opening an envelope that covered him in white powder, and the immediate thoughts that ran through his head—is this a hoax, anthrax or ricin?—Hoffman and Tobias’ film underlines the constant and immediate danger that Fauci is now in, thanks to a percentage of the population that views him as the embodiment of both the pandemic and the social restrictions required to mitigate it. He’s at the center of a Republican-led maelstrom born from ignorance and insanity, and as he remarks about the global catastrophe that’s still unfolding, “I think we’re going to get through it, but we’re going to get through it in spite of this divisiveness, and this politicization. We’re not going to get through it because of it.”