Published: mic (January 27, 2014)
“I think I’m a flawed candidate.”
You pretty much hit the nail on the head there, Mitt Romney.
The central narrative arc in Mitt, the new Netflix documentary chronicling Romney’s two presidential campaigns, is that of a candidate who aims for the highest office in the country only to return, heartbroken, to ordinary life. The film, while failing to reveal anything new about the inner workings of American politics, is reasonably effective at humanizing Romney (which seems to be its primary goal). It does so by applying the Deschanel treatment to its subject: striving to paint him as quirky and loveable.
This approach can be summed up in a single GIF (of a grown man ironing a shirt like he a 3rd grader):
“Ouch!”
One can’t help but empathize with the guy. The film isn’t powerful enough to make us feel like we know him well, but we do know that he was clearly terrified of losing. There is even a prophetic moment near the beginning where he talks about how he doesn’t want to be remembered as a “loser” or a “laughingstock.” If director Greg Whiteley’s goal was to show us that even Mitt Romney can deserve sympathy, he succeeded.
Of course, none of that means we should have voted for him or that it’s wrong to laugh.