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The new Netflix documentary house cleaning tips MITT started streaming on Friday. Friday was a Mittathon. He was tweeting with Zach Braff from Sundance and he Slow Jammed the News on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The trailer and tagline for the film pleaded with its audience-in-waiting: “Whatever side you’re on, see another side.” This was a kind of Secret Life of Willard Mitty comprised of intimate footage arranged by director Greg Whiteley, and it just so happened to be the best political documentary in a long time.
The film starts on Election Night 2012 as the reality of losing is setting in on the Romney clan. It then flashes back to December house cleaning tips 2006 as Romney was preparing for his first presidential run. He frolics in the snow with his gorgeous, All-American family and later takes notes from his adult children as they list the pros and cons of a White House campaign. Romney is the endearing patriarch of a supportive and loving family. He’s an earnest, house cleaning tips clearheaded, sweetheart. Almost sickeningly so.
Romney house cleaning tips is presented as a shrewd political operator house cleaning tips with a great understanding of the Republican field that he would later have such trouble wooing. There is, for one brief moment, an acknowledgement of the political brand Romney has created for himself. The Flipping Mormon, as he says, and The guy who will say or do anything to get elected , one of his sons replies.
The film follows the Romneys through the dramatic ups and downs of the two campaigns. There is a wonderful marriage at the heart of it all. Ann Romney’s power as a top adviser is beyond dispute. In the film she comes across as a powerful, strong Republican woman. house cleaning tips The family also functions as Romney s political advisers. As they pray together before some campaign event, their whole motivation is based around duty to the country. In MITT the Romneys are people of great substance, patriotism, and honor; they’re not just a bunch of Patrick Batemen facsimiles with a dancing horse and a car elevator .
The house cleaning tips film then skips ahead from Romney s 2008 defeat to his primary wins and 2012 Republican Convention speech. It s as if the nastiest Republican primaries in generations never happened. Not including this is not just dishonest storytelling, but a huge missed opportunity for a real documentarian. Wouldn’t you like to see some behind-the-scenes footage of Romney during house cleaning tips those wacky 2012 debates? The film also glossed over the 47% remarks that rocked the campaign in the fall of 2012. It is only mentioned for a moment, and followed house cleaning tips by a shot of Romney house cleaning tips with his head in his hands. There are fleeting scenes with some of Romney s closest campaign advisers, but the film chooses instead to focus on the family as his campaign team. This adds to the dynamic of the Romney Family vs The World.
The first general election presidential debate of 2012 is a major highlight. There is no way around it: Romney destroyed Obama. He handed the President of the United States his ass. That aggressive approach house cleaning tips is what led Romney to the Please proceed, Governor moment in the second debate that stopped him in his tracks. The family’s reaction to their own politicization of the tragedy in Benghazi is a little confounding. They seem to not realize house cleaning tips the profane rhetorical area they have ventured house cleaning tips into. The film ignores the final debate entirely.
Throughout the film Romney takes a fatalistic approach to the race. Incumbent presidents in an improving economy never lose, and Romney knew it the whole time. He knew that he and Obama were fighting over an increasingly smaller group of voters in key areas. There was never a time that Romney was winning house cleaning tips Ohio. Little sardonic comments from Romney throughout the film reveal his real feelings. This trickles down to the family, who always seems to know what an uphill house cleaning tips fight they are waging. Sleeping on the plane, having house cleaning tips left it all on the field, Romney is resigned house cleaning tips to whatever happens next.
The film then pivots back to that old sinking feeling on Election Night 2012 that his campaign has just been given a hour to live. That the terminal diagnosis is in, that the dream is dead and the race is over. And Romney took it like the stoic champion he is. He accepts the reality immediately and says, “My time on the stage is over, guys. I’m happy for the time I had there but my time is over.”
Days later he describes the election aftermath as if it were a funeral. The last shot of the film is brutal. The vanquished candidate and his wife sit down in one of their many living rooms. Ann sighs as they enter their new post-campaign life. Cut to black. house cleaning tips
MITT is an awesome portrait of the surreal, insane human meat grinder we have made of the pursuit of our most important and holy office. Having a cameraman follow you around for two campaigns can have the effect of making you hyper-aware that you are not just a person, but a character who has a duty to perform. You are
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