As its short declarative title implies, Janet Tobias and John Hoffman’s documentary “Fauci” is single-minded in its pursuit of exploring and humanizing the now (in)famous director of the National Institutes of Health. Wisely avoiding the uncritical coronation of Fauci that rippled through the media in the past year, Tobias and Hoffman, instead, present a complex and humane figure entrenched in his chosen medical field, who was nevertheless embroiled in the heightened political discourse around COVID-19.
Starkly contrasting the vitriol that ring-wing commentators threw at the doctor against his intense work ethic – 12 hours a day, 6 days a week – “Fauci” may sometimes lean into hagiography in its first half, tracing Dr. Fauci’s life up until the 2020 outbreak, but the filmmakers also carefully draw parallels between the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s and COVID-19, with brief detours into Ebola, showcasing Dr. Fauci’s transformation from buttoned-up researcher to bioethical scientist. While sometimes too-routine in its construction, “Fauci” is nonetheless a compelling portrait of a caring doctor whose work has, too often, been reduced to partisan bickering.
Beginning in May 2020, as Dr. Fauci bounces from interview to interview, all in hopes of moving the needle on masking and social distancing, “Fauci” is surprisingly less concerned with COVID than one might initially think. Instead, the film moves backward in time, tracing Fauci’s time at Cornell before his appointment to NIH. Moving through his courtship with his wife, Christine, the film’s bifurcated structure becomes apparent a little less than halfway through, as Fauci and the NIH contend with the influx of HIV patients and the growing social indifference to the virus, if only because it is infecting minority and homosexual populations.
From there, Tobias and Hoffman present Fauci on opposing sides from the AIDS activist organization ACT OUT as they march and use his name to signify the oppressive bureaucracy that is impeding research. This opposition is mainly telegraphed into playwright/activist Larry Kramer, who eventually acts as something of a moral conscience for Fauci. Yet Fauci, in one of the film’s culminating moments, reaches out to ACT OUT, becoming the only public official to meet with them, and attempt to explain his reasoning. He even invites them to speak at a symposium, himself giving remarks about the interrelation between activism and science. Featuring interviews with a number of those activists, they mainly speak to the man’s humanity and openness for debate, even if they still disagree on minor points of difference. All the while, “Fauci” juxtaposes this against COVID, allowing Fauci to narrativize his thought process when, say, chiding Trump for his touting of hydroxychloroquine.
Yet as his own daughter says, it’s an imperfect comparison. As she summarizes, there is a massive difference between activist pushback and peaceful protest and the bile that anti-lockdown figures spew about him. In the film’s most sobering moments, the narrative turns to the reactions from Trump world to Fauci’s gentle, but nevertheless resolute, belief in science. Overlaying numerous commentators and footage from Trump’s rallies, Fauci complains to a friend about the sheer volume of death threats he’s receiving, admitting that his wife had to change her number because she was constantly harassed. It’s both unsurprising given our current state but still terrifying.
“Fauci” works best by giving its subject the space to react to the myriad misrepresentations within the media, but the documentary often feels stretched thin, attempting to present biography, social issues, and real-time COVID updates simultaneously when one narrative line would’ve been enough. By the latter half of the film, Tobias and Hoffman follow Fauci as he works with the pharmaceutical companies to create a vaccine. An infinitely interesting process, especially filtered through Fauci’s point of view, the film continually interrupts this story to move backward and talk about the Ebola outbreak or his trip to Africa under the direction of George W. Bush.
By moving in multiple directions at once, “Fauci” attempts to be all-encompassing, sacrificing specific storytelling beats for a more generalized portrait of the man, creating an interesting but superficial representation. Yet, even with these structural problems, the film works well to humanize a man who never sought the spotlight but nevertheless found himself in the middle of a culture war, if only because of his belief in facts and rational scientific evidence. [B]
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