Mark Reviews Movies: KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 30, 2019

During the 2018 midterm election, a record number of women ran for seats in the United States Congress. A sizeable number of them ran grassroots campaigns, refusing to take contributions from corporate and other big-money donors, and had little to no governmental experience. With Knock Down the House, director Rachel Lears sets out to follow four of these candidates, although it's clear that the show belongs to one of them.

The star here is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was born and, after college, lived in the Bronx. Working as a waitress and bartender at the time, she challenged Joe Crowley, a near 20-year member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a higher-up in the machine of Democratic Party politics.

From Ocasio-Cortez perspective, nothing of value has been done under Crowley's representation, and if nobody else is going to challenge him for the party's nomination for that district, it might as well be her. She might not have experience in politics and government, but surely a working-class person such as herself has some idea how to help other working-class people.

The three other women, in descending order of the documentary's focus on them, are Nevada's Amy Vilela, West Virginia's Paula Jean Swearengin, and St. Louis' Cori Bush. Each of them has a similar passion for the issues of everyday people. Vilela's daughter died after she was denied a medical test that could have helped to treat a fatal condition. Swearengin has come from a family of coal miners, who are now relics a dying industry that has ruined the environment. Bush, a nurse and activist, has seen little progress in addressing the problem of police violence and overreach.

Lears doesn't try to evade the political agendas of these candidates, but because of the focus on what has motivated them to run, the film never feels partisan. There has been a lot of talk about populism in politics in recent years, and while much of it feels like a fake and cynical grab for votes, we actually see what a sincere version of that can look like here.

Knock Down the House works as a fine biography of Ocasio-Cortez (at the expense of the other candidates, unfortunately) and a fly-on-the-wall picture of what it's like to run a grassroots political campaign. It's also an inspiring rally cry—a reminder that political and governmental change is in our hands.

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