Movie Review: RBG

RBG **** / *****

Directed by: Julie Cohen and Betsy West.

 

Considering how important the Supreme Court is to America, it is somewhat curious that very few of its members really enter into the wider culture as individual people the way politicians do. Partly, that’s because the Supreme Court is still rather dull – it’s all legalese, where we find out what decisions they passed down – and their importance – and less about the people who do it. The one exception in recent years is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but even with her she was on the court for years before she broke through as a genuine pop culture phenom. It took until she was more and more consistently in the minority, and more and more issuing dissenting opinions, before her footprint on the larger culture grew to what it is now – where she has a regular impersonator on SNL (Kate Mackinnon) and is all sorts of merchandise, and the subject of countless memes online. Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s RBG then is a welcome documentary, as it gives you a small glimpse behind the curtain, to see exactly who this person is, by examining her career.

 

The film briefly goes over Ginsburg’s childhood – but is more interested in both her marriage, and her law career. She went into law school at a time when very few women did – and although she graduated near the top of her class, law firms didn’t want to hire her. She went the Academic route instead – teaching at law school, and eventually taking on one case after another of gender discrimination – arguing frequently in front of the Court she would one day sit on. She was brilliant and methodical – and more often than not, she won. Appointed to the Federal Court by Jimmy Carter – in an effort to make the federal judiciary more diverse, she didn’t have a chance to make the leap to the Supreme Court under Regan or Bush Sr. – and Bill Clinton didn’t really consider her either. She was, by then, in her early 60s – and though to be too old. Her husband lobbied hard, she got an interview with him, and won him over. And slowly, but surely, her reputation kept on growing.

 

The problem that any documentary like this is going to have is that to cover so much information, over such a long period of time, you are going to have to skim the surface – it doesn’t really work any other way. I will say that while this documentary undeniably does that, it does it in such an entertaining and informative way, it’s not that big an issue. It’s also valuable in the case of someone like Ginsburg – who is a figure who we most associate with her current self – the defiant, 80-something year old soft spoken fire-brand of a Supreme Court justice, to let us in on what got her there in the first place. And while you can quibble with the fact that the documentary basically sticks to the public record – not so much the person behind it, watching the film, I got the impression that they were one in the same. Ginsburg has been a workaholic her whole life – dedicated to the law, working until all hours of the night on her career. Her kids and grandkids, who are interviewed here, clearly love and admire her – but there is more personal fondness towards her late husband, who was outgoing and gregarious in a way she never could be. This may very well be one of those cases where the public image, and the person herself, actually match up.

 

One could argue that the film is one-sided – that the filmmakers clearly love Ginsburg, and assume that anyone watching the documentary does as well. This isn’t wholly inaccurate either – but I don’t think the film really lionizes her either. It sticks close to the record, so if you think it’s one-sided, you’d be hard pressed to see what in the film should be changed, or pick on something it gets wrong. If you disagree with her, fine, but the film is telling you why so many love her – why in these trying times, many look to her with hope.

 

It was a coincidence that I watched RBG in the same week that Brett Kavanagh faced his vote to replace Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court. I watched it just a few days after I watched Kavanagh’s partisan performance in front of the Judiciary Committee. It’s true that all judges are, in some way, political animals – but I cannot recall another one so nakedly so than Kavanagh. Watching RBG, there are a few moments with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who clearly disagrees with Ginsburg, but also clearly admires her. I do not think that in 25-30 years, we’ll see a documentary about Kavanagh with a Democratic Senator saying the same things about him. The Supreme Court has fallen from its idealistic perch – and perhaps that’s why so many love Ginsburg. She is aspiratory figure – and deservingly so.