Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains

Director Jonathan Demme’s camera follows the former president through several days in late 2006 on a tour to promote his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. As a vehicle for spending time with Carter, Demme’s film succeeds, allowing us to tag along on several plane flights and rides in chauffeured SUVs, to traipse through a series of hotels and TV studio makeup rooms, to pull up a chair as he signs books for admirers in stores from Washington to Phoenix, and to watch some grainy video excerpts of interviews with Charlie Rose, Larry King, Tavis Smiley and others. But it’s a mighty shallow dip in the press pool; Demme reminds us of Carter’s presidency, his Nobel Peace Prize, the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity, but in all these 125 minutes tells us absolutely nothing that we didn’t already know.