What the Constitution Means to Me (2020, Marielle Heller) (Patreon)

60/100

Big year for "movies" that aren't so much cinematic adaptations of Broadway shows as they are a more sophisticated equivalent of setting up a camera at the back of the house in order to preserve the production for posterity. While Hamilton and American Utopia straddle only that line, Heidi Schreck's Obie-winner additionally raises the question of just what separates a (mostly) one-woman show from a TED talk; she admittedly gets more personal as she goes along, and throws in a lot of outright comedy, but this is still basically pedagogy at heart. It works—as theater, anyway—in large part due to Schreck's winning onstage persona, which she accurately self-characterizes at one point as "psychotically polite." There's a manic undercurrent to her delivery that forestalls any feeling of being lectured at, and while some of the more emotional beats come across as practiced, they retain an odd patina of authenticity. You can see that she's manufactured the brief loss of composure, but also intuit that she's replicated something that was once very real. Which somehow seems more honest. Neat trick. Schreck's climactic debate with a high-school student doesn't translate quite as well, and the show closing with a proxy Q&A doesn't translate at all, ending things with a shrug. Nor did I appreciate Heller's penchant for prodding us at key moments with reaction shots of rapt or teary-eyed audience members (even if that's really the sole evidence that Constitution was directed, as opposed to merely captured). But odds are that I'd otherwise never have experienced this work at all, so at least I can appreciate it in the same compromised way that I value photos of, say, Bal du moulin de la Galette, despite never having been to the Musée d'Orsay. Not that Schreck = Renoir or anything, but you get the idea. Reproduction.

(For some reason, Amazon designates this as "episode 1" of a TV series. It was widely reviewed as a film, though, so I'm just ignoring that.)