Review: Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains

Jonathan Demme follows former President Jimmy Carter on the road plugging his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” This sort of cinema verite set-up worked for Albert and David Maysles when they followed movie producer Joseph E. Levine in “Showman” (1963), and when D.A. Pennebaker followed Bob Dylan on tour in England for “Don’t Look Back” (1967). But there’s only so much you can get by documenting the mechanics of press conferences and interviews—and Demme seems over-enamored of limos, SUVs, jets, elevators, Secret Service escorts, Carter’s late-night swims in hotel pools and a backroads Georgia bike ride with wife Rosalyn. Demme never goes beyond the knee-jerk media reaction to Carter’s choice of “apartheid” in his book title. “Provocative” is the accusation. “You obviously have not read my book,” Carter tells one interviewer over the phone. “What always hurts is the editing,” he tells his publicist after finishing an interview for Israeli TV. Demme elects not to show the edited version of that broadcast, nor ask if anyone attacking Carter read his book. Better documented is Harvard law prof Alan Dershowitz checking Carter’s use of the phrase “so-called Holocaust” and Dershowitz clarifying on camera that he meant to say that not all Palestinians were “cockroaches,” only Palestinian terrorists were. Demme’s valedictory montage of news clips in the end credits offers a more effective snapshot of Carter’s legacy than a bunch of book signings. 126m. (Bill Stamets)