Television Review: 'The Roosevelts: An Intimate History'

The engrossing, impressive The Roosevelts: An Intimate History peels away the story behind this complex family.

Review By Matt Cummings

The story of America is usually chronicled through glitzy, face-paced editing with a smattering of unknown college professors. It sometimes works (see Nazi Mega Weapons), but for the most part it's an uneven affair at best. The Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History demonstrates that the more traditional methods of creating a documentary still work, resulting in a powerful experience about the 20th Century's most beloved but complex family.

History takes us through nearly 60 years of family history, starting with the irrepressible Theodore (voiced by Paul Giamatti), brought whose big energy and unwavering foresight ushered the US away from the demons of Reconstruction and into the modern manufacturing world that Alexander Hamilton desired so greatly. But he's also a champion of nature and a social worker who believed that everyone should be given fair chances to get ahead. The story moves into his niece Eleanor (Meryl Streep) and nephew Franklin (the late Edward Herrmann), both ostracized in their youth who come together to lead a troubled nation through depression and war. It also recounts the warring that the Oyster Bay Roosevelts waged on the Hyde Park ones, sometimes publicly admonishing the other, even while FDR sought a third and fourth term. Together, FDR, Eleanor, and TR set forth the story of modern America, bringing a nation shattered by civil war into the 20th Century, to become the world's protector and beacon of democracy.

What makes this documentary unique is that the big three - Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor - are observed together, wrapping their lives into a single, collective narrative. The result is truly masterful: by taking the rather traditional approach of time as opposed to theme, Burns is able to encompass the entire history of one of the 20th Century's most complex and popular families. In truth, it makes The Camelot days of The Kennedys seem pedestrian. This could have been a modern tell-all - and in some ways it is - but Burns knows how to keep the scandal behind FDR to the facts: the frequent visits by Lucy Rutherford, the 'assistance' of long-time friend Daisy Suckley (Patricia Clarkson) and Missy Lehand. But what opened my eyes the most comes in the final two episodes. There, we learn just how ill FDR had become, the efforts by the administration to conceal his congestive heart disease, and how all of this was kept from his children and the American public. When one son back from war walks in on Rutherford - the two had not previously met - rubbing FDR's polio-stricken legs, we are as surprised as the young man.

Burns has cut his teeth on this style, in many ways furthering the process by which modern documentaries are told: fill it with first-class historians, dig deep into the journals and speeches, and hire well-known actors to voice them. It might be a tired formula for some, but the way he weaves the larger facts with smaller anecdotes still impresses: TR's final expedition, Eleanor's constant strain against her mother-in-law, FDR's unscheduled meeting with a naked Churchill all bring a heightened sense of reality to the popular history of this complex family. And the story of the Roosevelts is tough to watch at points, not because it's poorly done, but because it casts an ugly shadow on 20th Century America as self-centered, racist, and short-minded. Burns knows how to pluck those strings melodically but decisively, demonstrating that his multiple Emmys over the years were well-deserved.

The voice cast is superb, led by Streep, but also featuring Ed Harris, Kevin Conroy, John Lithgow, and Billy Bob Thornton. Each works with varying results, but it's Streep who nails Eleanor both in tone and inflection. As the final episode's 30 minutes focuses squarely on her, we get the sense that the story has come full circle, that the depressive TR's need to be constantly working in order to feel worthy had always been a part of Eleanor. It's a poignant moment, but one that Burns orchestrates with his usual tactical brilliance, painting her and the rest as people first, leaders second, fighting graying battles over loyalty, and ultimately faced with monumental decisions about the fate of the free world. Not many could succeed under those kinds of pressures, but I believe it was their humanity which allowed them to win the day, a fact which our 21st Century standards should never forget.

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History is another stunning victory for Burns, the preeminent storyteller of our time. In the end, he's able to do something that most directors forget to do: document without judging. Rather than overpowering us with his perspective, he encourages what Journalist Walter Cronkite once said, to "hold up the mirror - to tell and show the public what has happened." Audiences will no doubt find plenty of chances to do so in the 14-hour, seven episode affair, not when he is retelling of their greatness but in those moments when the Roosevelts are ordinary, conflicted by family troubles, or faced with great personal loss. The way we interpret Burns' message - that one must overcome personal tragedy in order to be great - is then set squarely on our shoulders. With so much fast-paced entertainment out there, you would do well to slow down long enough to check out Burns' newest masterpiece.

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History is available on most PBS stations.

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