By Eric Kohn

Conventioneers

Directed by Mora Stephens

The obvious parallel to recent political imagery in the fake documentary Death of a President is its depiction of protestors. The fictional assassination is presented as a moment of intense relief for liberal activism; when news of the murder hits the streets, their instantly celebratory reaction feels exaggerated—but only slightly. Those familiar with the street theater surrounding Madison Square Garden during the last Republican National Convention will recall that the battleground was bloodthirsty on both sides. That infamous animosity sets the stage for Conventioneers, which imagines love between a red state delegate and a blue state demonstrator amid the tumultuous battleground of New York City between Aug. 30 and Sept. 2, 2004. It also deserves inevitable comparisons to Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy fits the new setting due to its weight as a quintessentially divisive moment in American history. 

Director Mora Stephens shot around the city while the convention unfolded (aping the technique of 1969’s Medium Cool), resulting in several members of the production getting arrested alongside actual activists. Genuine protest footage provides an immersive nostalgia trip for those who remember the overcrowded streets. The dramatic eye candy skillfully obscures a slim plot, but the real centerpiece is the plot of the election. 

All the major players in Conventioneers represent specific radical perspectives, but the message isn’t didactic; as a rallying cry for civil discourse, it offers accessibility for any given mindset. The absorbing irony is that the characters are realistic because their polemic tunnel vision is so stereotypical.

The storyline has its charms, opening from the perspective of the delegate (Matthew Mabe), an enthusiastic Southerner named David Massey whose staunch conservative outlook starts to unravel after numerous hotel liaisons with his old college pal Lea Jones (Woodwyn Koons). She’s a bleeding heart liberal with a bark to match her bite, but after a rough start, the two former friends find themselves exploring the pleasures of nonpartisan sex. Both have preexisting relationships, a key symbolic conflict that speaks to the difficulty of crossing party lines. A subplot featuring a left-leaning protestor conflicted about his job as a sign language translator for the president’s speech (Alek Friedman, who actually did it) fleshes out the pandemonium instigated by various loyalties. The role-playing in the script is sketched out so that no side ends up marginalized, which is the whole point. Nonjudgmental parables like Conventioneers deserve to be studied—if anything productive can be accomplished during the real life sequel coming in 2008.