No Time to Fail

Sara Archambault and Margo Guernsey's cameras take us behind the scenes of what has become the front lines of the fight for American democracy. In their film, we see the folks that enable elections to function—elections board officials, poll workers, canvassing clerks, and administrators in the Secretary of State’s office—and all they have to deal with in the days leading up to the 2020 Presidential election. It's a critical subject for today, but this doesn't feel like the film of the moment. That's mainly because the focus here is Rhode Island which, while it has its share of Trump-worshiping election deniers, wasn't ground zero for the movement to discredit election results and demonize the hardworking, honest civil servants that undertake the thankless, and now increasingly dangerous job of overseeing elections in a fair, legal, and democratic way. There are some memorable characters and a few interesting sequences, but this movie actually feels like it comes from a bygone era when anti-democracy propaganda designed to undo the most basic foundation of our Republic wasn't yet a serious threat.