5/5 Captivating
  by shibha
Let me start by saying I wasn't a die-hard Obama supporter, but a little star-struck after he got elected.

With that, this is a fascinating journey of the history in making. I was surprised there is not much pre-planned interviews. It's brilliant how the actual footage speaks for itself. About half-way in the doc, surprised Obama says to the camera "You guys are still here", that shows how this was filmed. The next sentence by Gibbs was -- "they know their movie is going to get better" -- it did get better.

Keep some tissues handy, some scenes made me cry. The 9 year boy on the phone is the most hillarious thing I have seen in a long time, and he almost slams the phone but not quite, pulls the back phone back and says "Have a good day", it is funny.

In the very beginning , Obama says "I love elections, they are so much fun". That for some reason is stuck in memory and it simply describes the whole journey in my opinion.

I can't believe his speech-writer is so young. Gibbs's son scenes are adorable too. Obama girls and the family scenes make everything look so human. Grandma's house and childhood pictures, they show his middle-class back-ground. A scene where he is sleepy,yawning, sitting on a side-walk and then on the cue runs to the stage, it's fascinating. There are so many beautiful moments like that.

There are no inside scoops/gossips/misshaps/opinions/political issues/surprises, and I think it's good thing too. No contrversy, just plain facts some day you would want to see on History channel. Even then it held my interest like a well-made thriller.


4/5 The Impossible Dream
  by prisrob (New EnglandUSA)
Most of us who followed Obama throughout his Presidential bid can relate to this film. It is two hours of Obama and those who believed in him and worked with him. It is a film of a dream, and and the dream of everyone looking for change. What I remember most from this documentary is the tears and the surprise that, yes, indeed, we had a historic election and the making of that dream is laid out for all to see.

The two young women, filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, with the assistance of actor, Ed Norton have given us a film to renew our faith in change. Rice and Sams began following Obama a year before he became a presidential candidate, when he was a new senator from Illinois who had made a celebrated speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention and seemed worth looking at. And, then they got caught up in the primaries and the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. I did not learn much that was new. Nothing about Barack Obama is revealed that we did not know. It is a documentary about a man running for President. Early on we feel the idealism and energy that permeated the campaign. We are also privy to the prejudice of some of our brothers and sisters.

The campaign workers are filled with the dream of change, the speech writer John Favreau, who understood that Obama was a better writer than he was, but persevered anyway to deliver. Michelle Obama's charms are on display, and we understand how much her personality and honesty bring to the man who would be president. There is a great deal of realism here as we follow Obama from his first win in Iowa to New Hampshire where a win was almost a certainty, until it wasn't. We see the interplay between Hillary and Obama, the crowds who gathered in New Hampshire and the waiting behind the scene for the event to begin. What we don't see is the emotion of the campaign, the stories behind the story. Certainly the filmmakers had great access, but not to the inner sanctum. The mistakes and the swearing and the failures and the disappointment we are not privy too. That is a large part of what I wanted to know and it was not there. One of the most enjoyable scenes is with nine year old Lorenzo Rivera, one of the youngest phone canvassers I have seen. We can feel his palpable frustration with a voter on the phone who was confused about who Obama was and what this young man wanted. He handled it well ending the conversation with "I hope you have a wonderful day." The tears of joy from Ronnie Cho a field campaign organizer who was featured throughout the film,, as he goes to call his Mom to tell her the news: Obama has won the Presidency.

This film was more about the making of a campaign and the fact that Obama was involved gave it emotion, but again the inside the scene was missing. The guts is missing from the glory.
Obama was seen as an impossible dream, and we followed those working with and for him to the beginning of the dream as reality.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-05-09

Flo Prefers Sprinkles 2 Amy Rice 20x20



4/5 The making of a historic campaign
  by J. Fahey
Watching this film one year to the day after the 2008 election, it seemed a bit soon to spend two hours revisiting a campaign that remains so fresh in the mind, but it's still a compelling document that chronicles Obama's rise from semi-obscurity on election night 2006 (when the film begins) to the moment he's officially elected President. The filmmakers were granted incredible access and capture some nice candid moments with the Obama family and the campaign staff, but as the film progresses, there's a noticeable lack of footage showing the day-to-day strategizing that would make this a truly fascinating campaign document; this is not 'The War Room'. Where the film is most effective is in showing the ground game, as staffers organize on the local and statewide level. We follow one young staffer as he bounces from Iowa to several other states, and it's his passion and emotion, culminating in a tearful call to his mother on election night, that provides much of the film's heart. Despite not digging quite as deep as I would have liked, this is a skillfully made and engaging documentary.

5/5 SO good!
  by Desmond Griffiths (San Diego, CA)
I just caught the end of this on HBO and it was absolutely amazing, moving, and made me so proud of our president and the hard work he's faced unwinding the absolute mess he inherited. I can't wait to watch it again in its entirety.