Critics reviews

The fascination of RBG is in part the story it tells, amply laying out what has made R.B.G. such an important force in the legal profession since her days at Harvard Law School in the 50s. But it’s also, significantly if less obviously, a telling example of how our long-overdue enthusiasm is prone to manifesting itself in the dominant feminism of the moment.

[Hale County This Morning, This Evening] opened audiences' eyes to a depiction of black families, and in particular of young black men, almost never seen in either documentary or fiction. Which is not to say that the doc sections lacked more conventionally shaped, socially conscious movies, the most exciting of which was Betsy West and Julie Cohen's RBG, a biopic of the Supreme Court Justice that makes me wish I had saved until this moment the word "extraordinary" for Ginsburg alone.

Given that the ghost of Harvey Weinstein's career hovered over this year's event, this female rage seemed apt. So too did the presence of "RBG," an entertaining, predictably stirring documentary from Betsy West and Julie Cohen that traces the personal and professional battles fought by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

We are living in an era full of sound and fury, not to mention bitterness, hysteria and rampant incivility. So there is something deeply soothing about RBG, a documentary that, like its subject, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is eminently sober, well-mannered, highly intelligent, scrupulous and just a teeny-weeny bit reassuringly dull.