TV Review - The Family (2019)

Jesse Moss has directed this documentary series about a conservative, Christian, lobbying group, known as The Fellowship aka The Family. It's an organization that has existed or has been around since the 1950's. It's risen as a very influential and even powerful, lobbying group that has touched various heads of state, including various Presidents of the United States and various members of Congress. Its claim to fame is the National Prayer Breakfast. This series is mainly a history of that breakfast, how it came to be and what its significance and impact has been. The Fellowship has always operated as a stealth, evangelical organization, which seems positive and ostensibly harmless. However, Moss' series suggests that something more insidious is at work.

The way it suggests that insidiousness is through the filmmaking. Normally, I don't notice the musical score of films or TV shows, but the music here is very much akin to House of Cards meets Making a Murderer. Moss even utilizes a technique similar to that of Errol Morris. Morris is a filmmaker that examines crime or those involved with crime in order to expose corruption or failings in whatever institution or culture. The way that the interviews are framed aren't exactly like Morris in style, but Moss embraces a tactic that Morris has used in almost all of his films and including Morris' recent series Wormwood (2017). That tactic is reenactment. Morris used actors to put together a narrative, a very cinematic expression, as a way of illustrating what his documentary was conveying. Moss does the same thing here. He uses actors extensively and in a way that almost blurs the line, making you think that maybe this isn't a documentary.

David Rysdahl stars as Jeff Sharlet, a journalist who wrote two books about The Fellowship. He did so after having been a member of The Fellowship. It's not clear if Jeff joined the group for genuine reasons or if he did so undercover, wanting to expose them. Zachary Booth co-stars as Luke, a friend of Jeff who disappeared and whom people thought was in a cult. The truth was that Luke was apart of The Fellowship. Luke is the one who invites Jeff into the group. It's not clear how Luke was recruited into the group, but the answers might be detailed in Jeff's book. For the first, two episodes, Jeff and Luke are merely our window into how the men operate within the group.

Jeff describes the group as like a college fraternity, but instead of beer and horseplay, the young men study the Bible enthusiastically and almost aggressively. The young men also do chores, manual labor for various property owners. All the while, they're being indoctrinated into the philosophy and teachings of the ultimate leader, Doug Coe, played by James Cromwell. Cromwell provides a lot of gravitas and wisdom to this man. The young men around him though are groomed to work in the offices of various politicians, forming an unseen network throughout Washington, DC, all of them spreading its Christian word and message.

None of this would seem problematic, if the argument isn't made about the separation of church and state. Moss' documentary though can't quite pin a specific agenda that the group is pushing within the United States. It makes a case for agendas the group is probably pushing abroad or overseas. Moss makes connections between the group and homophobic efforts in countries like Romania and Uganda, but there's no solid link that proves direct cause-and-effect. Homophobia and evangelism have gone hand-in-hand, prior and outside this group. It's not clear if The Fellowship can be blamed for specific actions in those countries.

Even if this group didn't exist, the evangelical movement would still be pushing the things that we see in this film. If this series exposes anything, it exposes more the elitism and the wealthy privilege that the group purports. Other than that, the only thing that's even close to insidious is the incident involving Maria Butina. The incident goes to the criticisms involving corruption and campaign finance, especially since there's a monetary component to the National Prayer Breakfast. Another incident that adds to the insidious argument is the one involving the C Street Center, a house that has been the subject of tax controversy and Moss' series does a good job of deconstructing that controversy.

Yet, having the actors Rysdahl and Booth is notable because both were in the film The Revival, which is a film about a religious man dealing with feelings of homosexuality. I wish Moss had done more with the reenactments and the actors. However, none of it compares to this series introducing us to a real-life person at the National Prayer Breakfast who makes this series worth its while. Moss introduces us to Larry Anderson, a black man of a certain age who runs a Friday morning, men's group in Portland. He's a man of faith who attends the Prayer Breakfast, challenges the leadership and talks boldly about race relations. It's interesting to listen to him. It would have been more interesting to learn more about him and question him additionally, but no one at the Prayer Breakfast would give him the kind of floor or platform that this series does.

Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 5 eps.

Available on Netflix.