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RUN GRANNY RUN
Camera, Produced & Directed by Marlo Poras.
Edited by Yu Ying Chou & Poras.
Music by Ian Kane.
Released by Arts Alliance America.
USA. 76 min. Not Rated.

“Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for” says benevolent replacement Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s 1939 classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which a small-town Joe refuses to be a passive political stooge. With uncanny similar themes to Capra’s film, Run, Granny, Run follows 94-year-old Doris Haddock, a real-life, modern day Mr(s). Smith, on her campaign trail, fighting for a seemingly lost cause of her own – a New Hampshire senate seat.

After one candidate drops out of the 2004 New Hampshire senate primary at the last minute, Haddock, better known as “Granny D,” gets the Democratic nod. Receiving no acknowledgment whatsoever from her Republican opponent, she runs a campaign on a sub-shoestring budget, and attracts attention by walking a 250-mile loop around the state (a mere skip compared to her 1999 year-long trek from LA to DC to advocate campaign finance reform). Equally as lovable as Granny are her rag-tag, colorful, and dedicated staffers who couldn’t be more convinced that, despite all the campaign’s shortcomings, Granny is a force to be reckoned with.

The documentary reads like a linear narrative with a lovable, tenacious underdog, a character-driven backstory (Granny decides to make her mark after her hubby and best friend die), an unlikable political-windsock of an antagonist (two-time incumbent, Republican senatorial stiff and staunch Bush supporter Judd Gregg), and a climactic televised debate. It is the epitome of a story worth telling, an out-of-the-box life story with an inspirational and progressive political message that underlines the difficulties – better yet – impossibilities (for now) that litter the path between average citizenry and Capitol Hill. While the jimmy-rigged campaign may seem laughable at times, how hard political credibility is to come by without backing from big business and private interests is anything but.

During the televised debate with Gregg, in an action that may or may not have left me fist pumping on the couch, Granny, with the spunk of a school girl, challenges New Hampshire voters, giving them “the once in a lifetime opportunity to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of the Washington bribe machine.” While America is overdue for such a monkey wrench, plights like Granny’s remain Jefferson Smith-like lost causes well worth fighting for. Matt Alesevich
November 13, 2007