E-Mail This Article to a Friend Requiem for a candidate Reliving the John Kerry campaign at the movies BY ADAM REILLY

Inside the Bubble, a new documentary about John Kerry’s failed 2004 presidential campaign, hasn’t hit theaters yet. In fact, it doesn’t even have a distributor. But judging from the buzz that’s developing around the film — which debuted at the New York Television Festival last week — that should change soon. Late last month, New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove hyped it as "potentially devastating," and quoted an unnamed source who said it could be "the silver bullet that kills Kerry’s presidential chances for 2008." The Note, ABC’s heavily trafficked political Web site, gushed that "there are almost no boring scenes in this film," and praised the Kerry-focused segments as "quite revealing."

Kerry partisans have been less kind. The Unofficial John Kerry Blog (kerryblog.blogspot.com) suggested that Inside the Bubble should be retitled The Snore Room — an unflattering reference to The War Room, the 1993 Clinton-campaign documentary — and dismissed its director, Steve Rosenbaum, as "a shill [for] the infamous Swift Liars and the red elephants." (Rosenbaum says he votes Democratic.) They’re not the only skeptics. Recently, John Dickerson, Slate’s political correspondent, lamented the film’s focus on second-tier operatives and the corresponding absence of top advisors like Bob Shrum and John Sasso, each of whom barely shows up over the course of almost two hours.

For the most part, this debate is good news for the filmmakers, since it pumps up public awareness of their project. But it’s a bit perplexing for prospective viewers. Is Inside the Bubble a critical masterwork that will end all talk of a second Kerry nomination? Or a frustratingly insubstantial piece of fluff?

Split the difference, and you’ve got your answer. In the end, Inside the Bubble is both a flawed and compelling film — which is only fitting, since John Kerry was both a flawed and compelling candidate.

First the bad news. Anyone who watches Inside the Bubble in hopes of seeing the nominee and his inner circle planning or processing pivotal campaign moments — Kerry reporting for duty at the Democratic National Convention, Kerry windsurfing off Nantucket, Kerry noting that he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it, Kerry whupping George W. Bush in the first presidential debate — will be deeply disappointed.

Take the case of the DNC and Kerry’s ill-advised military salute. Ideally, we’d witness Kerry and his closest aides immediately before and after (think Shrum and Sasso high-fiving behind the curtain, or Kerry pulling an Eric LaSalle as he walks offstage). Barring that, we’d see footage of the media and advance types who serve as Inside the Bubble’s stars — spokesperson David Wade, communications director Stephanie Cutter, senior press wrangler Jim Loftus, traveling chief of staff David Morehouse, and Kerry aide and confidant Marvin Nicholson — reacting moments later, or reassessing months afterward with the benefit of hindsight. Instead, we’re forced to settle for Vanity Fair media critic Michael Wolff (who, oddly, is the sole voice of independent analysis or reflection in the film) recounting how dismayed he was when Kerry made that particular gambit. Wolff can be an engaging commentator, but he’s not the subject of this documentary. And learning his thoughts doesn’t increase our sense of immediacy or deepen our understanding of the internal workings of the Kerry campaign. Regrettably, this weakness pervades the entire film.

There is a silver lining here for Kerry and his boosters, however — namely, the absence of piercing insight also means that no fatal flaws are revealed. Granted, there are times when Kerry looks bad. One example: at a sparsely attended press conference on an airport tarmac, the senator simply ignores a question from Globe reporter Glen Johnson about Bush’s stem-cell-research record, an episode that suggests the senator’s reputation for arrogance and aloofness is at least partially deserved. But there’s no damning moment, no shot of Kerry reducing a low-level aide to tears, or mocking evangelical Christians, or wondering aloud if Howard Dean should have been the nominee.

One much-discussed segment seems, at first glance, to approach that level. It comes in the second presidential debate, when Kerry criticizes the current tax parameters for small businesses. As the owner of a timber company, Kerry notes, Bush himself can be defined as a small-business owner under the existing federal tax code.

After Bush laughs this off — "I own a timber company? That’s news to me! Need some wood?" — we watch Hillary Clinton roll her eyes in the audience and see Kerry’s staffers looking dumbfounded ("What the fuck was he talking about?" Morehouse mutters). Coming on the heels of Kerry’s virtuoso showing in the first debate, these scenes remind us of one of Kerry’s worst attributes: his unfailing ability, whenever he had an opportunity to build momentum, to undercut himself with some painful public gaffe.