Time for a personal anecdote, kids! You know how people always ask you when you're small what you want to be when you grow up? For many years, my standard answer was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. According to my mother, the lure of a lifetime appointment of being the final legal arbiter for an entire country was too attractive for me to resist. So as you can imagine, Ruth Bader Ginsberg ranks pretty high up there for me. In recent years, the Notorious R.B.G. has become a creature of myth and legend on the Internet and this documentary does strike a hagiographic tone at times. It is strongest when it allows its subject to speak for herself either through current interviews or historical records and hopefully, those are the parts people will carry with them when they finish watching.
Ginsberg has been practicing law for over 60 years. She made a name for herself taking on cases of sex discrimination, building always towards the inexorable goal of achieving equality through the law for men and women. Soft-spoken and petite, she has nonetheless proven indomitable through the decades, challenging institutions and mindsets with calm, reason, and empathy.
This documentary isn't necessarily ground-breaking and I don't know that it has the kind of panache needed to win but it is a sweetly engaging overview of a modern day icon. It even has it's own fight song, the Jennifer Hudson-led, Diane Warren-penned ballad "I'll Fight." Too bad it's going to get creamed by "Shallow."
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