But other than recapturing that feeling, “By the People’’ tells us little that we don’t already know. This film by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, executive produced by the actor Edward Norton, presumably stemmed from one of those deals that grants the filmmakers special access because they won’t air their footage until after the race is done. But while we get a few glimpses behind the scenes - Obama flubbing an answer during debate prep, or milling in his hotel suite the night he wins it all - we see very few unguarded moments. What we see, instead, is what we know: Obama is smart enough to choose his words carefully most of the time, and the filmmakers love him for that and everything else.
“That was a great speech,’’ one says to Obama after he delivers his speech on race. “How did it feel to give it?’’
“Strong.’’
And there you have it. A couple of aides assert that the speech was Obama’s idea, but we don’t get any insight into what must have been a fascinating internal debate about how to address the subject of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The same goes for another key campaign moment, when Obama lost the New Hampshire primary to a newly-emotional Hillary Clinton.
Instead, the film is essentially a rehash of campaign events, none of which happened especially long ago. Attempts to drum up suspense - playing dramatic music, for instance, over footage of the Iowa caucuses - fall especially flat. Will Obama win the caucuses? Um, yes. How about the election? I think I have a guess.
The filmmakers spend time with a few key campaign operatives, from weathered strategist David Axelrod to young speechwriter Jon Favreau. (In one brief scene, we see Favreau fumbling with the early stages of what would became a memorable line: “What began as a whisper in Springfield soon carried across the cornfields of Iowa . . .’’) We also see a young guy named Ronnie Cho, who works in Obama’s get-out-the-vote operation, exchange emotional phone calls with his Korean-born mother, and truly feel the Obama magic.
They’re nice moments, but, again, not surprising in the least. “By the People’’ functions as a nice record of the campaign, something that could eventually play on a loop at the Obama Presidential Library. The far more interesting story is the one still being written.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to www.viewerdiscretion.net.
