'Boys State’ co-director Jesse Moss chronicles the historic year in which Pete Buttigieg went from outlier to legitimate contender in the Democratic presidential primaries in this documentary feature for Amazon.
A lot more of Smith’s colorful candor would have given this informative chronicle of Buttigieg’s out-of-left-field run in the Democratic presidential primaries the punch it sometimes lacks.
“You’re not a fucking anthropologist here,” snaps Smith during another moment of exasperation, when the candidate is rattling off bullet points like a policy wonk with little human connection. The good grace and forbearance with which the unfailingly calm Buttigieg receives his staffer’s blunt criticisms is among the most amusing — even endearing — insights of this intimate portrait.