CNN Films' On The Trail: Inside The 2020 Primaries misses the point and feels outdated

The A.V. Club

The HBO Max documentary that follows CNN female reporters as they cover the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race "seems to be a stitched-together Frankenstein-hybrid of The Circus’ news summary model (which airs weekly and therefore makes sense) and its own human interest profile feature, here spotlighting the day-to-day operations of CNN’s women reporters," says Dan Jakes. "The trouble is that the film doesn’t serve either of its two aims very deeply." He adds: "In an early scene shot in her gorgeous Los Angeles kitchen, (Kyung) Lah discusses the sacrifice her family makes in her absence on the road. It’s understandable—at any level of seniority, time away from loved ones is hard and shouldn’t be trivialized. But the newsworthiness and stakes of that sacrifice just feels like such a sidebar compared not only to the global pandemic and economic crisis creeping in on the film’s margins (which get only the tiniest coda at the very end), but the other elephants in the room for women who work in political journalism in 2020. It’s strange that a documentary specifically highlighting the talents and challenges of reporters who are women doesn’t touch at all on the Trump White House’s uniquely shitty treatment of female journalists, or the broader movement to expose and reject normalized sexual harassment in the industry. Instead, On The Trail stakes its emotional climax on the end-of-summer-camp sense of finality reporters experience when, after two years of constant coverage, 'their' candidate suspends their campaign. The whole project is frustratingly indicative of CNN’s political coverage at large, which—despite having the resources and hired talent to do better—manages to point its camera in the correct direction and still miss the big story entirely." ALSO: The political realities have shifted so much over the past few months that the primaries seem like an entirely different election.