"This Divided State" examines the controversy that erupted on the campus of Utah Valley State College when leaders of the student government invited incendiary documentarian Michael Moore to appear on campus in the closing days of the 2004 presidential election. The filmmakers jump into the fray capturing the protests, pickets, posturing, and pablum generated on both sides of what amounts to a fairly petty squabble among partisan ideologues and semiprofessional hotheads.
The drama unfolds fairly slowly, interviewing both key participants and curious bystanders. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity is recruited during the squabbling for political balance. Other characters include a young Michael Moore look-a-like, a Michael Moore namesake, and a Moore's Pizzaria manager. A good deal of padding footage is included to stretch the story out to a feature length runtime. The production values are extremely uneven as it was necessary to cull material from several videographers to build a coherent through line.
I admired the filmmaker's ability to capture the story's principals at key occasions in the drama and fairly neutral point of view balancing between the battling sides. Almost everyone in this film comes off looking like simple-minded weaklings or obnoxious blow-hards. The UVSC faculty members are stereotypical liberal academicians and the students overly idealistic adolescents. In the end it all seems much ado about nothing.
The drama unfolds fairly slowly, interviewing both key participants and curious bystanders. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity is recruited during the squabbling for political balance. Other characters include a young Michael Moore look-a-like, a Michael Moore namesake, and a Moore's Pizzaria manager. A good deal of padding footage is included to stretch the story out to a feature length runtime. The production values are extremely uneven as it was necessary to cull material from several videographers to build a coherent through line.
I admired the filmmaker's ability to capture the story's principals at key occasions in the drama and fairly neutral point of view balancing between the battling sides. Almost everyone in this film comes off looking like simple-minded weaklings or obnoxious blow-hards. The UVSC faculty members are stereotypical liberal academicians and the students overly idealistic adolescents. In the end it all seems much ado about nothing.