RBG (***1/2)

RBG isn't a particularly bad documentary, but nor is it some piece of revelatory cinema. Our filmmakers begin their story by broadcasting the comments of brash conservative pundits who call Ginsburg "evil" and "UnAmerican" and the like. From there, it's a movie that rarely lands on solid footing and instead relies on the emotional tug of a real human story to make its mark.

Yes, the movie begins by ominously using the words of RBG's critics who make her sound like some rabid curse upon the American Supreme Court. Hard cut to a frail, 84-year old woman in the gym, lifting weights and doing a set of pushups. We can begin to see her appeal. What makes Ruth Bader Ginsburg so intriguing is perhaps just that: her slight physical stature compared to her towering legal achievements over the course of her professional life. The documentary then begins to flash back - first to Ginsburg as a little girl, and then at Harvard and Columbia where she raised a daughter, cared for her sick husband, all while achieving remarkable grades among the top of her class.

What I like about this film is its portrayal of women in America, the challenges someone like Ginsburg faced as she became a lawyer, and once she was a successful professor, the legal issues that she worked to overcome for gender equality across the country. What I found most effective was the way our filmmakers isolated single legal cases that Ginsburg took on - many of which she argued before the Supreme Court (and before she herself became a member). Using audio clips of her orations as well as interviews from the plaintiffs, it's remarkable to see how far this country has come in such a short amount of time.

Of course, the film feels sloppy, unguided, and the finale is something that feels less like a conclusion and more like the remaining bits of film tacked on to the end. What is this film trying to tell us? Certainly that Ginsburg is now one of the more liberal Justices on the court in a time when Trumpism is threatening a more conservative array of laws for decades to come. That Ginsburg, albeit frail, is still working her hardest and has no foreseeable plans to retire. We meet her grandchildren, one of whom is a lawyer, and her children (who called their mother a bad cook and yet a firmly loving woman). We learn about her husband, a wise-cracking tax attorney from New York. Their relationship, while odd, is perfectly captured in a final note written from husband to wife and read by Ruth herself.

This would have been a more powerful film if the story focused entirely on the legal cases that Ginsburg took on. Documentaries have the potential to be just as engaging as any fiction film, as long as they are told in a captivating way. Use the brilliance of this woman's arguments and dissents in order to show us what kind of woman she really is. We don't need a lot of talking heads and clips of SNL sketches mocking RBG as a wise-cracking octogenarian. We get it. Millenials love her because she is progressive - the film doesn't need to show us countless glossy-eyed teens who eagerly wait to meet Ruth like she's a rockstar. It still must be said that Julie Cohen and Betsy West, our directors, certainly know how to make an effective feature. However, when compared to the other big summer documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" that tackles its subject with much more gusto, it's not hard to see the brilliance of RBG the woman, but the short-comings of the craft.