Film

On the day the official trailer for “Mitt”, a new documentary by Greg Whiteley, was released, it was number one on YouTube for the day, immediately garnering over a million views. The trailer opens on Mitt Romney the night of the 2012 election. It is becoming clear that he will not be the next president of the United States and he is visibly holding back tears of disappointment.

“By the way, someone have a number for the president?” he says with a good-natured laugh, “Hadn’t thought about that.”

This documentary promises a totally different perspective on the man behind the carefully calculated and flawlessly cultivated public image that brought on nicknames like ‘Mitbot.’ The trailer shows him ironing the cuffs of a suit while he’s wearing it, and curling up with a blanket on the floor of the campaign bus.

“I have looked, by the way, at what happens to anyone in this country who loses as the nominee of their party. They become a loser for life-it’s over,” Mitt says. With the attention and approval that this film is already receiving, he may find instead that he’s a winner, but the nation just figured it out too late.

Nancy A. French, one of the four original “Evangelicals for Mitt,” a group who supported and encouraged other Christians to support Governor Romney, was present to watch the documentary’s director at work. “Whiteley, in his tennis shoes and t-shirts, seemed at odds with Gov. Romney’s buttoned-up staffers,” she says, “In spite of [the staffers] distaste for this independent filmmaker, Whiteley always seemed to be right there at crucial, important times.”

“He was there when the Romneys prayed, when they fought, when they cried. He was there when Gov. Romney decided to drop out of the race in 2008, and when he lost in 2012. He captured all the real’ that the campaign seemed hell-bent on keeping from voters.

“Of Course, it is a deeply bittersweet moment that-at long last-some portion of the country will get to see the faith, humility and virtue of the family we know and love. It feels too late.”

The Washington Post declared, “Mitt Romney could’ve really used this Netflix documentary about him in 2012…In 138 seconds, Whiteley’s trailer somehow manages to make Romney more of a real person than all the stumping he did.”

The film will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17^th and the full-length documentary will be made available on Netflix January 24^th.