John Lewis: Good Trouble
According to John Lewis: Good Trouble, the closest thing to a mark on the influential civil rights leader and politician’s otherwise spotless record is that he may have played a little dirty to win his first congressional seat — but, you know, politics, so it's forgivable, or at least not something director Dawn Porter (Trapped) deems worth investigating.
And that’s OK.
Viewers who want to criticize Lewis aren’t going to spend precious time on a documentary that champions the native Alabaman’s decades-long fight for racial equality, from marching in the 1950s and ’60s with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to his current battles on Capitol Hill.
Per nonfiction filmmaking norms, most of Good Trouble — the term Lewis uses to describe the kind of necessary risks that achieve lasting results — employs basic tropes of talking head interviews and modern-day shadowing, though Porter’s use of archival footage and photographs is refreshingly creative.
For it, she sits Lewis down in front of a projection screen, like a kinder version of Errol Morris’ Interrotron, and shows him scenes from his past — most of which he’s seen, but some of which is new to him — and captures his minute facial reactions and verbal responses.
These intimate insights and chats with Lewis’ family, friends, and colleagues craft an informative biography, while enthusiastic talks with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, Ilhan Omar and other legislators Lewis inspired to run for office further cement his legacy. There’s also (probably too much) footage of Lewis interacting with his many adoring fans and needy constituents, though these stretches effectively stress the time-consuming consequences of fame that we’d rather ignore — and aren’t often seen.
Nicely tying together the still very connected past and present, Porter leaves viewers with a sense of sadness that all Lewis has worked so hard to achieve is under attack — and has been under attack all along. But by highlighting that reality as her film’s closing statement, she also inspires sympathetic viewers to not let her subject’s efforts be wasted, and may very well light enough of a fire to achieve that goal.
Grade: B-plus. Rated PG. Available to rent starting July 3 via fineartstheatre.com and grailmoviehouse.com
(Photo: Magnolia Pictures)
