KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE, by filmmakers Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick, is one of the most talked-about Netflix Originals. It’s a documentary about four women—Democrats all --who are campaigning for political offices in primary races of the 2018 election season. Two are wannabe Congresswomen, including a determined, grieving mother Amy Vilela from Nevada and ordained pastor/registered nurse Cori Bush from Missouri’s 1st District which includes Ferguson. The third is West Virginian Paula Jean Swearengen, the daughter of a coal miner, who is running for a Senate seat.
These women are only moderately interesting to watch as they campaign. Two are real amateurs when it comes to delivering speeches. I am imagining that Cori Bush is charismatic, but it’s hard to tell from the sparse footage offered by Lears and Blotnick. What makes these women stand out, if they stand out at all, is that they look, talk, and behave differently from so many stereotypical male lawyers who have populated Congress and the Senate.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and Netflix paid $10 million for the rights. What, you may ask, would be so marketable about this documentary? The answer is simple. The fourth candidate who is covered in the film is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now known to America and all the ships at sea as “AOC.”
Lears and Blotnick really hit pay dirt by including AOC. This film begins as a study of four women and not-so-gradually becomes a celebratory exploration of just one in particular, AOC. While the other three women have very little audience appeal, AOC is absolutely fascinating to behold. We see her in black skinny jeans at the restaurant where she works. We meet her mother and siblings and watch them mingle lovingly and with humor. We hear the story of her beloved deceased father who inspired her to succeed. We hear her innermost concerns as she sits at home and prepares a debate. We even see old home movies of her as a little girl with crooked teeth and yet a strikingly lovely smile.
After seeing KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE, it is no wonder that Ocasio-Cortez was able to win New York’s 14th District in the House of Representatives. She is shown here to be a young woman of our time. She has warmth, spirit, intelligence. She likes people. She belongs! She dresses hip but not in an expensive designer manner. She’s Peter Harris and T.J. Maxx, not Bloomingdales or Bergdorf Goodman. Here’s the key: She looks like she actually lives in New York’s 14th Congressional District. Her look and demeanor actually match those on the street with whom she shares ideas.
And consider the smug incumbent she was running against! Joe Crowley was the fourth most powerful person in the Democratic Party at the time AOC took away his position. We learn in the film that Crowley doesn’t even live in the 14th District.
The structure of the narrative of KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE is paint-by-number, using cross-cutting and filming on a low-budget level. Losing track of three of the four women gives the documentary an unbalanced feel. Also, it has none of the cinematic style or individualism of one of the most famous documentaries about a political campaign, THE WAR ROOM from 1993 by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker. But KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE is very important as an honest, informed record of many Democrats of the moment, and how they are changing the face of politics. In a way, the title of the film is misleading and wrong-spirited. These women do not want to knock down the House, they want to reconfigure it and make it more authentic in mirroring the population of our country.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former Director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and has co-authored several entertainment biographies with her husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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