Provocative, unflinching, and eye-opening, Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, famous for tackling societal issues with his hard-hitting films, hits audiences once again with
Fahrenheit 11/9, his stunning, insightful, and ultimately disturbing look at one of the most shocking electoral defeats in modern American politics. Beginning as one of the most unusual and highly controversial elections in American history, the outcome was projected by most news outlets and election experts to end with Hillary Clinton's landslide victory over then Republican nominee Donald J. Trump. Leading up to the election, Moore makes a point to show how little of a chance Trump presumably had of winning the election by showing stats and clips of several news outlets, political figures, and celebrities who endorsed Clinton for President and automatically called her the winner of the election prior. All the more making it a shock to not just the country but the world when the results announced on 2:30AM on November 9th showed Donald J. Trump beating Hillary Clinton 306 to 232 in a shocking defeat, that went down as one of the most shocking upsets in American politics. The questions that Moore asks and attempts to answer throughout his documentary are 1) How did Trump win? 2) How did America get there? 3) How does it get out of this situation? Moore explores and attempts to answer all of these questions with no one being spared as he takes issues with both established parties in showing how they helped pave the way for Trump's victory.
Fahrenheit 11/9 serves as being an effective and thought-provoking documentary, that explores in-depth the reasoning behind the electoral victory on 11/9, as well as painting a map on how America got put on the pathway to Trump and how it can find its way out of a Trump era presidency.
The plot for
Fahrenheit 11/9 revolves around Moore exploring the current state of American politics with him taking aim at Donald Trump's presidency, as well as the rising gun violence epidemic in America. He also shifts focus towards showing the power of grassroots democratic movements, and explores three key traditionally Democratic states, that ultimately went to Trump after voting blue since 1988. Moore doesn't hold back in terms of showing audiences the exact reasons why Trump won the election and despite being left-leaning himself, turns a critical eye towards the moderate Democratic side in regards to Trump's victory, particularly the snubbing of Bernie Sanders as the nominee in favor of the more established candidate such as Hillary Clinton, while turning a critical eye towards then President Barack Obama, particularly his response to the Flint water crisis and his accepting of money from Goldman Sachs. Although Moore's documentary may come across as feeling depressing and hopeless like there's no way to fix a system that's become broken, Moore provides viewers with glimpses of hope by showing the grossroots movement of young Democratic candidates such as Alexandria Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, both of whom aim to help lead the Democratic party in a more progressive direction. Through showing audiences the progressive wing of the Democratic party, that's young and passionate about bringing change to Washington, Moore shows that this is the answer to getting out of the situation America found itself in and doing away with the old establishment, that partially led to Trump's unexpected victory. Moore also makes it a point to reveal to audiences that Trump actually didn't want to win the presidency at first, and was just running to boost his ratings for
Celebrity Apprentice. Moore shows this through facts he brings up while providing the moment where Trump shifted from not wanting to win the election to being engulfed in the support he was receiving from voters and ultimately deciding to go with it. What's interesting about
Fahrenheits narrative is how Moore doesn't automatically put all of the blame for Trump's victory on Russia for hacking the election, but shows how the system as a whole helped put Trump in office through years of broken promises, compromises, and parties acting similar to each other despite sharing different name brands. Moore angrily makes his case that Trump is President not just because of racism, but also because he tapped into people's frustrations and struggles with not being heard regarding their issues.
In terms of the films acting performances, there are no actors in the film as Moore shows all the key players with actual recorded footage, almost acting as testimonies as he interviews people to get their responses to certain situations, scenarios, and questions. What Moore tries to do with his documentary is provide an accounting for all the claims he makes, while backing them up with true words spoken by those in question. He allows individuals in both parties to speak for themselves as well as Trump himself through footage. With the narrative that Moore sets up in regards to exploring the origins behind Trump's surprise victory, he spends an equal amount of time attacking both Democrats and Republicans, while shifting to other events that influenced the 2016 Presidential election as well as the aftermath of it such as the Flint Water crisis, followed by the underpaid teacher strike in West Virginia, the Parkland Florida shooting with the survivors calling for more to be done, and the Me Too movement. Moore doesn't just focus the film on the results of the 2016 election, but shows the events which came after that shaped the country to be in the position it's in currently. With the title of the film being
11/9, Moore attempts to make November 9th as significant of a day as 9/12/01 with the implication being Trump's victory was a devastating moment for America, that came with obvious reprecussions explored in the film.
Compared to Moore's previous documentaries such as
Bowling for Columbine or
Fahrenheit 9/11, Fahrenheit 11/9 has little humor compared to those films as Moore presents the subject matter with a sense of urgency while aiming to make his film a tool in hopes of sparking a more serious debate regarding the current state of American politics. With the events he shows with the aftermath of Trump's victory, he provides audiences with a glimmer of hope that there is a way out of this scenario with the young progressive candidates shown to be the key. Moore designs the documentary to be a political call to arms with him forcing audiences to relive the shock, anger, fear, and frustration of how they felt on the night of Trump's victory and afterwards in order to prevent it from happening again. Is the documentary perfect? No, the film attempts to tackle too many topics and issues at once with the narrative becoming uneven in the middle portion. Moore makes a conscious decision early on to keep Trump in the background, while focusing on the before and after affects of the election to make the case to the audience that it was essentially everyone's fault for his victory. He sets up the documentary to often feel like a mirror for viewers to show how complacent people were to the warnings prior. Through narration and showing examples of people already calling the election in Hillary's favor, Moore shows how comfortable everyone got with the false idea that Trump would never win the election because of how controversial of a candidate he made himself appear to be. Moore's shock at Trump's victory is evidenced in his narrating to the audience begging the question: "How the fuck did we get here?" With this documentary, Moore attempts to provide in-depth answers for his three main questions while leaving it up to the audience to either accept his conclusions or maintain their own in regards to Trump's victory.
While it's certain that not everyone who watches
Fahrenheit 11/9 will buy into Moore's claims of how Trump got elected and take issue with some of his accusations and claims (He tends to go hard on the moderates with cutting them little to no slack on certain issues, his observation of the Flint crisis with Obama for example), they will however appreciate the fight he puts up towards attempting to wake Americans up to the realization that Trump's regime draws striking parallels to that of Nazi Germany with Moore showing prime examples. Despite taking audiences through a journey that's rough to watch, upsetting at times, disappointing, and powerful, he ends things on a note that basically says that it's not too late to change the current course of American politics and the goal should not just be getting rid of Trump, but also the establishment that helped put him there.
Fahrenheit 11/9 is a hard-hitting and timely piece of filmmaking, that aims to give viewers a better understanding of why Donald Trump became President and why so many people chose to vote for him with Moore particularly focusing on the three key swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, that Trump managed to flip from Democrat to Republican which ultimately handed him the election. Moore succeeds in answering the questions he sets up at the beginning of the documentary and does so with no enjoyment but to inform the audience on the situation in hopes that if enough people become outraged, they'll spring into action and spark a movement that will help win back the soul of the nation. As
11/9 shows audiences, things are rough at the moment but its not too late to turn back the clock and undo what's been done, though that requires everyone to take a stand which Moore implores with his well put together and executed documentary.
Final Verdict: For those who want a better understanding of the reasons behind the results of the 2016 Presidential election as well as fans of Michael Moore,
Fahrenheit 11/9 is a must see and proves to be a worthy sequel to Moore's 2004 controversial smash
Fahrenheit 9/11.
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