Pelosi in the House is a documentary and account of Nancy Pelosi's role as Speaker of the House. Photo / HBO
Pelosi in the House is a documentary and account of Nancy Pelosi's role as Speaker of the House. Photo / HBO
Pelosi in the House (PG, 104 mins) Streaming on Neon
Directed by Alexandra Pelosi
Reviewed by Jen Shieff
While reporters and other commentators try to explain the events that led up to Kamala Harris’s defeat and Donald Trump’s victory in the US election, bewildered Democrats are struggling to see a way forward, fearing that this Trump term will be even more chaotic and confusing than the last.
In times of trouble, a figure of strength and vision is worth turning to for inspiration: in this case, Nancy Pelosi, Madam Speaker, the first woman to lead the House of Representatives, second only to the President, a long-serving Democrat who served as Speaker under several Presidents.
Pelosi in the House, made in 2022 by Alexandra Pelosi, one of Nancy Pelosi’s children, gives a window into the person behind the crisp, exacting exterior.
It’s not the sort of documentary that belongs in a film festival, rather it feels like a good-quality home movie, with some really interesting archival clips: Nancy Pelosi as a child, as a wife, as a mother of five children, as a fun-loving grandmother, as a woman going about her daily life at home, doing the washing while talking on the phone with Vice-President Mike Pence.
The film does not cover Nancy Pelosi’s contribution to law-making in areas such as health reform or human rights, equality or fair pay, instead it tracks her through Covid, through the mounting tension when Joe Biden won the election Donald Trump claimed had been stolen, to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The insurrection becomes the heart of the film, giving us an understanding of the real Nancy Pelosi, a woman who bravely withstood the horrific destruction that took place, all the while being concerned to know that all the Congressmen and women who were in the Capitol at the time, and all her own staff, were safe.
It must have been terrifying for Alexandra following along, filming her mother as she is ushered to safety in a parking garage under the Capitol building while a horde bays for her blood in the corridors of power above them.
Nancy Pelosi’s dedication to her job and her determination to see the right thing done are all-pervading.
Susan B. Glasser wrote in the New York Times on November 6, 2024: “The post-2020 Trump [is] an older, angrier, more profane Trump… His slogan is now openly the stuff of strongmen -Trump alone can fix it - and he will return to office unconstrained by the establishment Republicans who challenged him on Capitol Hill and from inside his own Cabinet”.
If he’s to be constrained at all, a Speaker of the House who is as clear-headed, conciliatory, ethical and wise as Nancy Pelosi will be the one for the job. As with atypical leader Donald Trump however, the mould that made this uniquely capable woman may be broken.
