Outside Event: 'Along Came Kinky'

Along Came Kinky (2009), dir. David Hartstein
It’s been a while, but I remember being phenomenally bored by The War Room, a documentary chronicling the 1992 presidential election. So the idea of a film by a first-time documentarian focusing on a campaign of a much smaller scale, the 2006 Texas gubernatorial campaign, did not fill me with confidence. I ended up being hugely and pleasantly surprised.
The film does take a while to get started. The beginning is mostly just Friedman spouting one-liners while his supporters sing his praises. There is no one with a negative word about Friedman and it seems impossible to imagine him losing. The whole thing feels like a political ad. However, the beginning is charming enough, because Friedman is such a fun character. And the rosy opening, although it goes on too long, effectively gets you into the mindset of a Friedman supporter. It also makes it that much more shocking when the edges begin to fray during the campaign. The real turning point comes during a press conference, when Friedman refers to Katrina evacuees in Houston as “crack heads.” It is a shockingly real moment in what has, up until that point, felt like a very calculated show. After that, the film is really in full swing and massively entertaining.
There are some intriguing elements in the second half of the film that feel like they are short changed by the length of the lighter opening. I wish the film could have delved a little deeper into Friedman’s persona. It only lightly touches on the fact that, in many ways, his folksy stand up routine is just a variation of the stiff politicians who refuse to get off their talking points. I also would have liked it if the film had spent some more time following Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate. He is a great character, very low key and funny. As it is, the moments with him are great, but feel like sidetracks from the main story. Still, it is a strong film. It is a testament to its strength that, although the outcome is already known, it is still engaging, suspenseful, and, at the end, heartbreaking. Whatever my skepticism about Friedman, I really felt for him and his supporters as they tore down his banners to the tune of “Sold American.”

Sold American - Kinky Friedman