The Final Year

The Final Year is Director Greg Barker's 2017 HBO documentary on the former President Barack Obama and his foreign policy staff's work in President Obama's final year in office. It offers the behind the scenes of staff members as they travel and work towards policies as well as preparing to leave for office. The approach of the film is a mix of interviews with staff, fly on the wall scenes of the staff, Secretary of State, President, and ambassador as they travel to a handful of countries. It had a limited 2017 release, and a broader limited release in January 2018. I saw a screening of it in Baltimore, MD at the Parkway Theater.


While I think the general audience for this film are going to be more left winged democrats, and people whom voted for President Obama, I still think this is a critical film in this day in age. Barker does not seem to take the left or right winged approach to the topic, but focuses more on what the staff does in these meetings. Higher end government workers travel a significant amount and this documentary begins to shed some light on the long travel hours many of these staff members log and the prep and debriefing work that goes into meetings abroad. While most of the trailers seem to present more of a broader range of approach to the Final Year, it was a more in depth look at President Obama's foreign policy staff. We mostly following Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Powers, and Ben Rhodes, the deputy aide to President Obama's and speech writers. There are some scenes mixed in of Secretary Kerry, Susan Rice, as well as President Obama.


There are a good amount of scenes of staff on planes, working in tight office spaces, and working with people of Japan, Nigeria, Greece, Laos, and Vietnam. We get to see the Hiroshima Peace meeting, the staff working and meeting with families in Nigeria of the missing school girls, Laos and those that suffer from remaining bombs, and working with Vietnam. The Syrian Refugee crisis and cease fire was also front and center, the Iran deal and working towards less of a military strategy. While I feel like the first half of the documentary was a bit discombobulated, in the sense that we were as all over with the staff, there was less of a focus on how there was going to be a transition. This concept became more apparent in the latter half of the movie, as the office and staff leads into the final four months. The film sheds light on the struggles of staff with opposing views as well as the desire to get as much done within an eight year period, but issues getting forgotten as a result. Many of the staff members seemed to be set and expecting that Clinton would win the presidency and the foreign policy abroad, much of the issues and anger of the rust belt seemed to be forgotten.

It was an interesting and stark contrast between a well spoken staff and their struggles to get many people in war ravaged countries to feel safe, much of the anger of the rust-belt seemed to be left by the wayside. Presidents and their staff are going to struggle to please everyone, but there was a solid amount of tension in seeing where this country is going to go. Most of the approach of the movie was lead ins or post meetings. It is surprising the amount of access that Barker was able to take on with the documentary. It is also takes on the approach of three different opinions between the president and two of his higher aides.


The interviews and topics were much of working in forums within the countries they were visiting, looking at history and how we can use or not use these approaches. It doesn't seem to touch on the advanced teams that these aides or staff members need, but does take on many human interest approaches to staff and aides within the countries they are visiting.

There is a lot of stress and work that these staff members feel that they need to work towards with foreign policy, and takes on an interesting approach as the final four months become more evident that the Democratic party loosing roughly 1,000 seats with the election of Trump. The documentary and Barker seems to elude that while maybe this administration was too focused on their foreign policies, or they were stuck in their bubble so much so that they were not aware of the suffering and the struggles of middle America.

Like I said, I think most of the audience that watches this documentary are going to be more of a liberal crowd, but overall I think it provides an important look into the changing of an administration, and is a documentary that can lead to a good bipartisan discussion