Arts & Events

Sarah Palin: You Betcha!

Film review by Gar Smith
Friday September 30, 2011 - 09:46:00 AM

Opens Friday at the Sundance Kabuki in San Francisco and in Berkeley at the Elmwood.

If you don't have $25 to spend on Joe McGinniss' new book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, you might want to get a quick-read in the form of the new British documentary, Sarah Palin: You Betcha! But, fair warning, you just might find yourself wishing the movie screen came equipped with a fast-forward button. 

This 91-minute film from Britain's Channel 4 TV follows reporter Nick Broomfield (decked out in a costume of full-Alaska hunter's garb) as he stomps through the snows of Wassila in a fruitless, three-month attempt to gain an interview with the former beauty queen, former mayor and former vice-presidential candidate. 

It's pretty slow going for the first half of this gossip-fueled film. (Broomfield's efforts will remind viewers why Michael Moore is so much more effective and persuasive as a filmmaker.) Initially, the documentary tells us more about Wasilla than about its former half-term mayor. Wasilla, with a population of 8,000 has 77 churches, 2,800 gun-owning members of the NRA and is the "meth capital of Alaska." 

After failing to secure an interview with Palin, Broomfield knocks on the doors of some of her old Wasilla high school classmates and the following dialogue ensues: 

Local resident, pointing out the window of a moving car: "She grew up in that house." 

Broomfield: "Wow! She grew up in that house?" 

Broomfield to a former classmate: "Was she really Sarah Baracuda?" 

Answer: "No." 

Broomfield to another classmate; "Was Palin was a good basketball player?" 

The camera zooms in for the dramatic pay-off: "She was… average." 

Broomfield manages an interview with Palin's parents who reveal that "she was very competitive" and "her faith was very important to her." And he finds "a friend" who recalls how Palin expressed her belief that "Jesus would return to Earth." (Not exactly an Earth-shaking revelation, given Palin's membership in the Assembly of God. Church.) 

Broomfield complains that people in the small town of Wasilla are "afraid to talk." So he travels all the way to Alexandria, Egypt to interview one former classmate who is not afraid to speak out. But her major contribution to "unmasking the Palin Mystery" is to observe that, if you were a member of The Assembly of God, "To go against Sarah would be to go against your church." 

This is pretty thin gruel, journalistically. Because Broomfield was able to score only a few, really good interviews, the first half of You Betcha! is padded with rehashes of Palin's early days. We get videos of Palin playing high school basketball with the Wasilla Warriors. We get Palin parading in a bathing suit as part of the Miss Wasilla Beauty Pageant (she placed third but won "Miss Congeniality"). And there is the famous video of the "witchcraft" service where Sarah stands on stage with her head bowed as an African preacher "exorcizes" her and prays to God to "bring finances her way in the name of Jesus." 

And we get to watch the YouTube Trove of Palin's Greatest Gaffes -- from Katie Couric's "gothca" questions (e.g., "What newspapers do you read?") to Charlie Gibson's unanswered invitation to explain "the Bush Doctrine." 

Things start to get interesting when Former Friends (a large and ever-growing cohort, both in Wasilla and beyond) recall Palin's depression after Obama's election. 

"She really thought she was going to win," one Wasillan recalls. Palin wasn't planning on having to return to Wasilla to work as a mere governor. She was reportedly so depressed that, instead of paying attention to energy policy and health issues, Palin started spending her afternoons watching daytime soaps while scarfing down Taco Bell crunch-wraps. As a result, Broomfield claims, when winter came, "some people froze to death in their homes." 

There is a nasty overtone to the film's narration that is exacerbated by an excess of gratuitous imagery (a string of still photos selected to make Palin look angry, tired, miffed, rattled; a clip of the green-skinned witch from "The Wizard of Oz"). One almost starts to feel some sympathy for Palin. 

Broomfield digs up charges of Palin's plastic surgery and tries to gain "a fresh perspective" by setting up an interview with daughter Brsitol Palin's "baby daddy," Levi Johnston. It doesn't pan out because Johnston's "manager" wants more that a mere $500 to deliver "new grizzly, unrevealed secrets about Sarah" including details on drug use and "boyfriends and girlfriends of Sarah and Todd." (In this exchange, as in others, Broomfield is forced to relay the interviews via subtitles because he only managed to catch the dialogue over a phone.) 

Just past the midway mark, the documentary starts to serve up the best it has to offer—a set of interviews with a half-dozen former Palin intimates. 

Palin's Deputy Mayor recalls how "she uses people and then throws them under the bus." 

A member of Palin's council remembers how the mayor would conduct hearings "chewing gum like a 12-year-old" and would cut off the comments of anyone she didn't like. 

Palin's former campaign manager describes his disappointment upon discovering that "once she won," Palin had no real interest in the mayor's job: she was frequently oblivious during city meetings, transfixed by her two Blackberries. Worse, he now sees Palin as a sociopath, someone with "no loyalty, no compassion." 

The McCain staffer responsible for nominating Palin to fill the VP slot on the GOP presidential campaign ticket, now says (via yet another subtitled phone conversation) that he regrets the decision. Calling Palin uneducated, dishonest and "extremely divisive," he says his finds the possibility that someone like Palin could wind up as president, "spine-chilling." 

Like McGinniss' book, You Betcha! prowls the outer limits of rumor and innuendo but still makes a strong case that, to many of those closest to her, Palin is someone who is controlling, suspicious, and vengeful. She "blames others for her own failures." She has a "dysfunctional psyche" and attacks "perceived enemies." She used the mayor's office to fire enemies and conduct vendettas, including the Troopergate scandal, in which she attempted to force the firing of a former relative from his state job. When the "top cop" she hired (to replace the police chief she previously fired) refused to reopen the case, she fired him. 

Broomfield reveals the existence of an informal team of pro-Palin Wasilla enforcers called the "Flying Monkeys" (another reference to "The Wizard of Oz") who would track down and threaten Palin's detractors. He interviews several residents who claim they were targeted for abuse, including one who says he was slandered on Facebook and subjected to death threats. 

One of Broomfield's first really good questions goes to the pastor of a church that was run out of Sarah Palin's Wasilla after he was deemed too tolerant of homosexuals. "What makes her scary?" Broomfield asks. The pastor replies: "She has no hesitancy about using violence against evil," so she would have no qualms about "triggering a nuclear war. She believes she is the Anointed One." 

Like Michael Moore's Roger and Me, You Betcha! ends in a fruitless pursuit of an interview. The only two "one-on-one" interviews Broomfield captures occur during brief encounters at various Palin's book-signing appearances. The documentary ultimately concludes with Palin's appearance before a large crowd in Oklahoma. Broomfield's footage is filmed from a great distance and the sound-quality is poor. The "audience questions" are all pre-selected and numbered for Palin's convenience but Broomfield can't resist one last stunt. He stands up to shout out an unscripted question — knowing that this act will get him tossed from the hall (as backup cameras capture his expulsion). 

Unless you're already a fan of Broomfield's nerdy UK on-air schtick, You Betcha! may leave you hungry for a big slab of Michael Moore. But, after a good deal of initial wheel-spinning in the snows of Wasilla, the film eventually does manage to capture a compelling portrait of the woman behind the wink, the ego behind the smirk. And it's pretty damn scary.