Given that we're nearing the midpoint of Donald Trump's tenure as leader of the free world, it's surprising just how little we've seen of him in film. It's not a bad thing, but given how television is drowning in supposedly witty zingers about Number 45, I would have expected to seen more of him on the big screen. At the very least, I was expecting 10 crappy impersonations spray-painted orange to have popped out of some raunchy low-budget comedy making a joke that even in 2008 would have been too easy. But instead I suppose we got the next best thing, a Micheal Moore documentary focused on him which inverts the date of the most catastrophic attack to occur on American soil in recent history. Godwin only knows what will come out of that bout of subtlety.
To Fahrenheit 11/9's credit, Trump doesn't really become the main topic so much as Trumpism being the umbrella of which the movie's topics fall under. Much of what is discussed about Trump is already known: he's a narcissistic pervert, the media has done a great job of playing into his hands, and he has gotten away with so much garbage right out in the open. Even the opening makes a point about how the campaign was all a publicity stunt. This all serves as contextual fodder to segue into recent events such as the West Virginia teacher's strike, the Parkland shooting, and of course the Flint water crisis. In fact, Flint takes up such a significant part of the film, that it almost seemed as though Moore was intending to go with that first but then had to adapt it to Trump now that he was president. Course, that would be ignoring how Moore was pretty much on the money about the Don.
While there is a great deal that is being juggled, Moore does well enough to tie everything together but the tone does take some sharp turns that can be as disorienting as the daily news. In his other works, Moore does well to provide a good balance of humor and calm to an otherwise grim or upsetting reality that he constructs. Fahrenheit 11/9 diminishes its comedy for a starker reminder of the damage that has been wrought. The humor is isolated into small segments that are inundated with so much panic and deadpan conversations that any relief that you might've gotten is lacking. Perhaps this adds to the urgency but it further confuses what Moore's trying to aspire to, a commentator or a propagandist.
Its brand of alarmist comedy reminds me of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, as it appears to want to be more proactive in pushing its message and uses jokes as the ice pack that the punch delivers. Both also attack the threat from within, calling to that old political adage that Democrats are a bunch of spineless compromise-happy liberals. Moore's efforts to puncture the Democrats certainly was a lot more biting, as he chided Hilary for her complacency to the presidency and disgusting perpetuation of political establishmentarianism along with Obama being a fraud of progressive ideals, using Flint itself as one of the turning points. I've heard these points before, but having someone more mainstream as it were making them was heartening to see. Much as I would commend him for pushing the envelope a little, I can't help but feel like its not enough to win over those that feel that he's just flirting with progressivism. Despite him have some decent credibility to being a leftist rather than a run of the mill liberal, he did not necessarily hold Obama to the same fire that he has chosen to roast both Trump and Bush under. Not to mention that he still can come across as nothing more than a celebrity armchair activist.
Perhaps the reason that I find myself so mixed on the film is because I'm mixed on the country itself. It is a nation that willingly has blinded itself to the ugly truths before it. It's one where disgraces are perverted to noble traits. It's so horrifically dismissive to consider that the entire nation approves on the travesties that the government commits domestically and worldwide or that they are merely idiots that cannot help to fall into their worst impulses out of ignorance. But they exist and they represent the United States of America. Internal divisions have distracted from larger threats that have permeated in the system and the wounds of partisanry are so deep that it does feel like something truly ugly could come to pass. Fahrenheit 11/9 encourages one to be on the alert, to not depend on easy solutions, and that eventually a collapse of the system will come, be it by the force of the people or the faulty structures caving in. Yet, it only seems that those motivated will be those that already were. And I bet you they're already doing something else than going to the movies to watch this.
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