''The Way I See It'' is a 2020 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed and produced by Dawn Porter, revolving around

Pete Souza Peter Joseph Souza (born December 31, 1954) is an American photojournalist, the former Chief Official White House Photographer for Presidents of the United States Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama and the former director of the White House Photogra ...

, the former

Chief Official White House Photographer The official White House photographer is a senior position appointed by the president of the United States to cover the president's official day-to-day duties. There have been twelve official White House photographers. Since the beginning of the ...

Laura Dern Laura Elizabeth Dern (born February 10, 1967) is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards. Born to actor Bruce Dern and ac ...

serves as producer under her Jaywalker Pictures banner. The film had its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on September 11, 2020. It was released in a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

on September 18, 2020, by

Focus Features Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in th ...

, followed by broadcast on

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

on October 16, 2020.

Synopsis

The film follows the life of

, the former

to former presidents

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

, as photographer to president as Souza uses his photography of Obama as commentary to understand where America is now.

Production

In November 2019, it was announced Dawn Porter would direct and produce the film, with

serving as producer under her Jaywalker Pictures banner, with

distributing. In July 2020, it was announced the film was titled ''The Way I See It''.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

on September 11, 2020. It was set to have its world premiere at the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, th ...

in September 2020, prior to its cancellation due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. It was released in a

on September 18, 2020, followed by broadcast on

on October 16, 2020.

Critical reception

''The Way I See It'' holds approval rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "The Way I See It takes an engaging look back at a political era from the unique perspective of the photographer who documented it from the inside." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Way I See It, The 2020 films 2020 documentary films American documentary films Focus Features films Films scored by Marco Beltrami 2020s English-language films 2020s American films