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Reel World: 'An Unreasonable Man'
The rise and fall of a progressive
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

An Unreasonable Man 122 minutes Not rated Opens March 16

The documentary An Unreasonable Man maps a political decline that would fit neatly among Shakespeare’s tragedies. Here, however, our tragic hero’s flaw is neither greed nor ambition; instead, it is stubborn idealism.

In the year 2000, more than 10,000 supporters paid $7 a head and thronged the Portland Memorial Coliseum in Oregon hoping to see an unconventional presidential candidate. The forum was filled to capacity when a wiry, slightly stooped figure took the stage and promised real reform.

His message drew deafening roars of support from the crowd.

Four years later, on the other side of the country in Portland, Maine, the same man would attract a paltry smattering of supporters and a large bloc of virulent protestors.

Over the course of four years, Ralph Nader changed from a folk hero to a pariah in U.S. liberal political circles. His sudden shift from an Everyman savior to the reviled culprit responsible for George W. Bush’s contested 2000 victory points to a larger polarization in popular political thought.

In An Unreasonable Man, directors Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan trace Nader’s rise as an unyielding advocate of consumer rights to his political fall from grace among liberals. From his early days as an upstart Harvard Law School graduate advocating for consumer rights to his little-publicized presidential bid in 2004, the documentary paints a portrait that is well measured and engaging.

With interviews from more than forty sources and diverse archival footage, the film attempts to parse through Nader’s muddied modern reputation to unearth his main message and legacy. Though the method is sometimes a bit too exhaustive (the film clocks in at over two hours) the portrait of Nader that emerges is intimate and moving, while the accusations levied against him by his detractors seem to pale against his 30-year record of personal integrity and dedication to the public good.

The film begins with Nader’s public struggles against the auto industry in the 1960s and devotes a good amount of time to his subsequent accomplishments as an advocate for public rights. Air bags, seat belts, cigarette warning labels and countless other modern safety measures find their genesis in Nader’s dogged efforts as a champion of the public interest.

Still, the movie’s main message lies in its examination of the bitterly contested 2000 election. Did Nader let his idealism trump the public interest of the country? Was he responsible for Gore’s loss, and thus for the rise of the neoconservative agenda? Is he merely a self-righteous crusader, a relic from a more idealistic era?

An Unreasonable Man succeeds in answering these questions by stepping back and letting both sides of the argument emerge on their own. Liberal writers and former associates levy plaints against Nader from every conceivable side – that he should’ve pulled out of the 2000 race at the very last minute, that he shouldn’t have campaigned in the swing states, even that he should’ve done more to back Kerry in 2004.

In opposition, Mantel and Skrovan enlist a wide range of subjects, including a Harvard political analyst, fellow independent candidate Pat Buchanan, talk show host Phil Donahue and Nader himself. Through the interviews and footage, every accusation seems to lose steam and fade under scrutiny. What appears in its place is Nader’s unassailable quest to end corporate welfare, bureaucratic corruption and fat-cat cronyism.

The film’s real accomplishment rests in its direct approach. True, certain sympathies of the filmmakers reveal themselves, but for the most part, the directors do an effective job of letting Nader tell his own story, a story that’s sometimes uncomfortable to watch and sometimes disheartening to contemplate.