By Glenn Dunks (who is currently counting down his top documentaries of the decade over on Twitter. Follow along or swing by next week for the conclusion!)
It’s remarkable, really. Hillary—Nanette Burstein’s four-part Hulu biography of the woman who needs only one name these days—is so much like its subject, it’s just uncanny. Ambitious and by most conceivable marks of quality a perfect candidate for greatness.
And yet.
One almost has to admire the chutzpah of Hulu releasing Hillary when they did. Like Taylor Swift uploading her back catalogue to streaming services on the same day Katy Perry had a new album out, it feels like some sort of joke, even if it was more likely simply a smart and shrewd way of getting eyeballs in a tough market by utilising the political attention of another wild democratic primary race as cross promotional advertising...
But like Swift, Clinton will always be accused of ulterior motives, of having a hidden agenda, of being up to something. Between this and Miss Americana, two of popular culture’s most condemned female figures are at least attempting to silence their critics and set the record straight.
Despite its four-hour length, I don’t think this one achieves that. Clinton has been in the public eye for so long that people’s opinions are likely so entrenched as to be immovable—although you can’t blame her for trying. Burstein—an Oscar-nominee for On the Ropes, but probably best known for The Kid Stays in the Picture—probes, but Clinton appears to more or less stick to the script that her supporters heard long throughout her 2008 and 2016 campaigns. The film itself doesn’t help, attempting to cover her entire life in a way that means some interesting passages like her tenure as a New York senator are only naturally given short shrift. I may have blinked and missed it, but I don’t think there was even a reference to her being in the room when Osama Bin Laden was found, but there is one where she praises George W. Bush, so, thanks.
Perhaps with a closer focus on a theme or a particular slice of her career, there would have been more roomto breathe and a greater opportunity/desire for Clinton herself to sink her teeth into a topic. The very specific kinds of vitriol that she has had levelled at her is something that should make for fascinating viewing, yet Hillary is more pleasantly surface level. Similarly, a passage about her corporate speaking engagements with the likes of Goldman Sachs that catches her on the defensive is ultimately trivialised as something not worth engaging with. Furthermore, despite four hours of runtime and a hefty number of interview subjects, never do we hear from anybody outside of her circle. Considering how often history repeated itself across her career, it seems particularly miscalculated to only hear from those with positive personal connections.
Clinton herself doesn't come off badly at all. Especially when you consider her reputation in some circles as cold, uppity, a warmonger, a murderer and a ball-breaker. Hillary’s greatest segments are those that connect the linear telling of her life story as we go behind-the scenes of her historic run for President as the Democratic nominee. Edited from over 2000 hours of footage filmed during the campaign, these passages are a rare insight that the rest of the film rarely offers. Anybody who followed the campaign will recognise her from these portions—she’s smart and assertive, funny and extremely professional. Complaints that she wasn’t genuine seem even more imbecilic. It also helps that she makes so much sense in the face of Trump that it makes one misty-eyed for what we could all be doing right now rather than constantly following the latest insane rantings of the current President. We could have all taken a pottery class!
Elsewhere, the series is best when Clinton has something to say beyond generic platitudes. Her experiences of Bernie Sanders hold weight whether you agree politically or not (she shows genuine frustration rather than resigned acceptance), and her take on the Monica Lewinsky affair have an authenticity to them that speaks beyond her own experience and to something bigger. On the other hand, why do we spend so much time with her husband during these passages talking about his anxiety?
Maybe I’m accusing the film of what many criticised Clinton for: for being something it simply was never going to be. Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t owe anybody anything, it’s true, but why have a four-hour film if it’s pretty much all stuff we already know. Even D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’ The War Room about Bill Clinton’s presidential run knew that the drama wasn’t necessarily in him, but rather the world, the sideshow, around him. The American political system is, to be perfectly honest, completely nuts and Hillary doesn’t really change my belief about that. What I wish it had done was offer a new perspective on why that is. As it is, it would probably make a great campaign launch. But let's not go there.
Release: Currently streaming on Hulu.
Oscar chances: After Made in America, the Academy changed the rules that productions screened episodically are (rightfully) no longer eligible. So even though Hillary could have easily been done just as a movie, it's not and so won't be competiting. Check for it at the Emmys, though.