Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

One could use many adjectives to describe "Dreams From My Real Father," but there's one that very nearly does the job all by itself: dishonest. The film and its director, Joel Gilbert, are phenomenally dishonest in their assertions, their arguments, their evidence, and what passes for their 'research.' Gilbert is brazenly dishonest with his audience and with his interviewers, and he was even dishonest with those he spoke with while making the film. The film's central premise, that President Obama is the biological son of Communist poet Frank Marshall Davis, is naturally dependent upon the existence of an intimate relationship between Davis and Obama's mother, Ann Dunham. Gilbert's evidence for this claim is essentially just twofold: the reference to a sexual encounter with an "Anne" in one of Davis' books, and several published nude and fetish photos that Gilbert claims Davis took of Obama's mother in Davis' Hawaii home in late 1960. Both of these pieces of 'evidence' are so faulty that no honest documentarian would have included them. Davis does indeed discuss an "Anne" in his book, but said "Anne" is a 13-year-old Jamaican girl, and the setting is Chicago, Illinois prior to World War II. Davis even specifically states that he last saw "Anne" in 1947, when Ann Dunham was only 5 years old. Gilbert actually shows scans of the book's pages in the film, but fails to mention that Every. Single. Biographical. Detail. About "Anne" is entirely incompatible with Ann Dunham. Nonetheless, the film ignores all of this, and claims "I think he memorialized the encounters with [Obama's] mom." As for the photos, although Gilbert CLAIMS they were taken in 1960, he's been very reluctant to say precisely WHERE or WHEN they were published. And for good reason. Because all the photos show the same woman in the same room, and yet at least two of his photos were published in early 1958. When Ann Dunham was only 15 years old, and over two years before she moved to Hawaii. Moreover, Gilbert has claimed that he visited Davis' house, and that he took photos that match the room in the photos. But he has never published the photos he supposedly took, and the reason why is because he's lying about what he saw. The owner of the house himself has confirmed that no room in his home resembles the photos. Everything about the photos involves Gilbert not only covering up information that conflicts with his theory, but actively LYING about evidence that contradicts him. Once you remove these elements from Gilbert's thesis, much of what remains is simply creative speculation on his part. He fabricates whole conversations from scratch. He claims Obama's grandfather was a CIA agent because he took first-year French in college. He manufactures a elaborate scenario where Obama meets Bill Ayers a decade early and the Ayers family becomes his secret benefactors. None of this is supported with anything resembling credible evidence; the film is filled with far more stock footage than legitimate investigative research. And Gilbert defends all of these flights of fancy as being "re-creations of probable events, and speculation." Translated, this means HE MADE IT ALL UP. And to briefly touch on various other failings, the film gets multiple basic facts wrong, like claiming a photo of Obama Senior's graduation is actually a photo of his arrival in Hawaii. It puts imaginary words in people's mouths, like claiming the President has a derogatory nickname for his wife. It even splices together a fake quote at one point. A catalogue of *every* factual failing in the film would be as long as the movie itself. And it's all wrapped up together in a huge bundle of conspiracy theory thinking. It's beyond me how the director is capable of pitching this product to the American people as "truth" when he is so fully aware of how comprehensively and maliciously dishonest the whole production is. One can only hope that his audience has the critical thinking skills to recognize what an utterly irredeemable bit of conspiracist hogwash the film actually is.