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In a scene from new documentary How to Live Forever, 101-year-old marathon runner Buster Martin smokes during training.

Buster Martin might have been the only man on earth who could put Keith Richards to shame.

In 2008, when he was somewhere between 94 and 101 years old (depending who you ask), Martin drank, smoked and ran the London Marathon — at the same time.

Martin died earlier this year, but his zany approach to life, which included abstaining from tea and water in favor of beer, is captured in How to Live Forever, a new documentary that dips into philosophy, science and hokum. The movie premiered earlier this year and expands into new markets Friday.

The majority of the film is dedicated to interviews with oddball characters like Martin, many of them centenarians with astounding vigor. Also seen on-screen are gerontologists, morticians and prophets of eternal living through chemistry (see a few of them in the gallery above). The obligatory smattering of famous people includes Ray Bradbury, Jack LaLanne and Suzanne Somers, who has hung up her Thighmaster in favor of hormone therapy.

All are united by an interest in extreme longevity, a topic that documentarian Mark Wexler treats with a mix of humor and awe.

The film project took three years, starting when Wexler had just turned 50. It was a quest to determine just how much time he had left, and whether he could make that number go up through medication, yogic laughter or anything else.

There are many people eager to help him on the quest for rejuvenation. University of Cambridge biologist Aubrey de Grey, with a beard worthy of Methuselah, declares we are decades away from discoveries that can bump up the average lifespan to a thousand years. A guru tells Wexler that if he can cackle for 10 minutes a day, for no reason at all, he will live longer. Researchers studying Okinawa, Japan — home to some of the world’s oldest people — suggest that a diet low in calories and high in micronutrients is the key to success.

But for every cheerleader of immortality, there is a voice of caution. After all, ask some, what is the meaning of life if it has no end? What will happen to the planet if nobody ever croaks?

Anyone who has paid passing attention to news articles about life-extension research will already know most of the material Wexler covers. For those who haven’t followed the futurists and the naysayers, How to Live Forever will be a useful introduction to the subject.

Wexler’s portraits of unexpected people prove tidy and irresistible.

Still, no matter how well-versed you are on the topic, Wexler’s portraits of unexpected people prove tidy and irresistible. Best of them all is the pudgy, painfully awkward representative of The Guinness Book of World Records, sent to verify the ages of the world’s oldest people. In an attempt at humor, he asks one if she’ll be around the following year.

Wexler, who appears on camera for much of the movie, seems obsessed with youth, swallowing fistfuls of nutritional supplements and taking inventory of his gray hair. But when the world’s oldest woman sings in a voice that evokes the distant hiss of a Victrola, Wexler’s discomfited grin can’t erase the haunting, otherworldly impact of the sound.

By the end of the movie, Wexler admits what the audience will already be thinking. “The prospect of talking to yet another gerontologist about the benefits of cod liver oil,” he says, “or another amazing 100-year-old about his daily exercise routine, just left me cold.” The documentary is also weighed down by an overload of New Age Oprah-speak and some corny music, both of which add to the viewer’s burden.

Unlike a talk show, How to Live Forever is bittersweet. Though there are many opinions about how many cards we can play against death, everyone acknowledges that we will eventually lose. What you strive for between now and then, as fitness guru LaLanne told the filmmaker, is your choice.

WIRED Introduces Suzanne Somers, biotechnology futurist.

TIRED Needs more science and less positive thinking.

Rating:

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All photos courtesy Variance Films/Wexler’s World.