‘XY Chelsea’ Film Review: Doc Tackles Chelsea Manning’s Very In-Progress Story
Tribeca 2019: It’s too early to grasp the full ramifications of the Chelsea Manning saga, but director Tim Travers Hawkins tries to get a hold on it
Dan Callahan | June 5, 2019 @ 11:01 AM
Last Updated: June 5, 2019 @ 11:02 AM
Tribeca
“I’m not a hero,” says Chelsea Manning toward the end of Tim Travers Hawkins’s “XY Chelsea,” a riveting but often frustrating documentary that focuses mainly on Manning’s 2017 release from jail, where she spent seven years for sharing classified military documents. During her time in prison, Manning came out as a trans woman, and on her release, she takes delight in putting on ultra-red lipstick and growing her hair long, which was not allowed in the all-male facility where she was detained.
Manning is currently back in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader who released Manning’s documents and videos online after The New York Times and the Washington Post expressed no interest in this information in 2010. It is not made entirely clear in “XY Chelsea” just what Manning feels about Assange, but she is likely martyring herself again purely on principle over a man to whom she has no loyalty. Assange might be unsavory, but from Manning’s perspective, the U.S. government is worse.
In a public interview with a New Yorker reporter that is shown here, Manning is asked tough, but fair questions about what she did and why she chose WikiLeaks, and she responds very defensively and inconclusively. There is so much of this story that needs further explanation, information, and context, that judgment regarding much of what we are being presented has to be suspended for now.
There is always a sense here of Manning’s emotional and physical fragility, and this is the aspect of “XY Chelsea” that is particularly difficult to parse. We are shown various people who have been drawn into trying to help and protect Manning both legally and emotionally, and once she is freed from prison they coalesce into a team that includes publicists. Manning poses for photos that present her visually as a kind of Edie Sedgwick of whistleblowing, and the effect is uneasy because it is clear that Manning does not quite know how to position herself for the public. The tragic aspect of this is that Manning is often so bright and appealing on camera that she might have made an impact in so many other ways if the pressures of her early life hadn’t led her into joining the military.
Manning was born in Oklahoma in 1987, and both of her parents were alcoholics. From what we hear, Manning led a very insecure life as a child and adolescent, and she was pressured to conform, which is what led her to sign up for the military in 2007. At five-foot-two, the rebellious Manning did not fit into this new environment in any sense, yet the army was so in need of recruits that she was eventually entrusted with classified information.
Manning says here that, “the Iraq War had left the consciousness” of America by 2010, and she was horrified by how “life was cheap” in Iraq. The videos that Manning released via WikiLeaks exposed civilian deaths that were covered up as the deaths of “enemy combatants,” and Manning stresses several times in “XY Chelsea” that she knew exactly what was in all the documents and that no harm could have come to military sources by releasing this information — this is a point that is surely up for some debate. There are no easy answers here and many vexing questions.
Hawkins does not interview Manning’s father, who seems to be at the root of so many of Manning’s problems, but he does talk to her mother Susan, who suffered a stroke a few years ago. Susan looks very much like Chelsea, and in the fragments of speech we hear from her she expresses love for her daughter and remembers how Chelsea used to command three computer stations at home.
Manning is articulate and clearly intelligent, and she was self-aware enough to call herself “naïve” in a computer message we see on screen in the lead-up to her releasing the classified documents. That naïveté gets her into trouble when she attempts to engage with people on Twitter and eventually runs for office. Manning makes the mistake of attending an alt-right function in order to infiltrate the enemy, but this military tactic earns her scorn from her Twitter followers, and this leads to a message from her on Twitter that reads “I’m sorry” underneath a photo of a woman’s feet on the ledge of a building. (Manning attempted suicide twice while in prison.)
The story of Chelsea Manning is still very much in process, and we are not going to understand some of its ramifications for years to come. This is a very difficult personal narrative to try to digest and make sense of, but at least “XY Chelsea” makes for a start on this, even if it cannot approach anything definitive on her singular story.
15 Top Grossing Documentaries at the Box Office, From 'An Inconvenient Truth' to 'Fahrenheit 9/11' (Photos)
Documentaries are rarely big money makers, but they can have the power to influence change and motivate people to action in a way narrative films cannot. So when a documentary does make a splash at the box office, it's an even bigger surprise. This list of the top-15 grossing documentaries ever is an interesting mix of political, nature and concert docs, and several of them likewise went on to win Oscars and critical acclaim. All numbers are domestic totals via Box Office Mojo.
Warner Bros./National Geographic Films/Paramount Classics
15. "They Shall Not Grow Old" (2018) - $17.9 million
Director Peter Jackson went to painstaking lengths to digitally restore and transform 100-year-old archival footage for his powerful documentary on World War I. Jackson restored color and sound to the Great War, something that was previously only known through black and white silent film. The documentary performed well in part because of a release that even transformed the footage into 3D.
Warner Bros.
14. "Oceans" (2010) - $19.4 million
You'll see a lot of Disneynature documentaries on this list. Pierce Brosnan narrates this 2010 documentary filmed across the world's oceans.
Disneynature
13. "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) - $21.5 million
Michael Moore's provocative documentary about American gun violence (and one of his best) won the Oscar for Best Documentary and broke international box office records for a documentary in 2002.
United Artists
12. "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" (2018) - $22.8 million
Morgan Neville's portrait of Fred Rogers and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" proved to be a crowd-pleasing hit in the summer of 2018 because of the absolute niceness at its heart. Neville in his film explains that Fred Rogers was the rare person who really did not have a dark side, and in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" it shows.
Jim Judkis / Focus Features
11. "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006) - $24.1 million
Davis Guggenheim's documentary spotlighting former Vice President Al Gore's plea to alert the world to the effects of global warming and climate change went on to win two Oscars and earn a sequel.
Paramount Classics
10. "Sicko" (2007) - $24.5 million
Another Michael Moore movie to crack the list, "Sicko" was Moore's look at the healthcare industry in America compared to other nations, with Moore sailing sick veterans down to Cuba to receive the care they couldn't have had at home.
Lionsgate
9. "Katy Perry: Part of Me" (2012) - $25.3 million
This 2012 concert movie followed Katy Perry on her California Dreams World Tour.
Paramount Pictures
8. "One Direction: This Is Us" (2013) - $28.8 million
"Super Size Me" filmmaker Morgan Spurlock directed this concert doc about the then wildly popular British boy group.
TriStar
7. "Chimpanzee" (2012) - $28.9 million
Tim Allen narrated this Disneynature doc about a three-month old chimp separated from his flock and adopted by another grown male.
Disneynature
6. "Earth" (2007) - $32 million
The first of Disneynature's documentaries, "Earth" was a theatrical version of the popular "Planet Earth" miniseries from 2006. "Earth" was finally given a stateside theatrical release in 2009.
Disneynature
5. "2016: Obama's America" (2012) - $33.4 million
Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Obama documentary speculated about where the country would be if Obama won a second term in office in 2012.
Getty Images
4. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" (2009) - $72 million
The footage in "This Is It" comes from a behind-the-scenes look at preparation for Michael Jackson's 50 shows at London's O2 Arena. It wasn't originally meant to be made into a film, but it provided an intimate look at Jackson in his final days.
Getty Images
3. "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never" (2011) - $73 million
The Biebs holds the spot for the highest-grossing concert film ever and the documentary with the biggest opening weekend of all time.
Paramount Pictures
2. "March of the Penguins" (2005) - $77.4 million
People sure love penguins. Morgan Freeman narrates the nature documentary that opened on just four screens but soon spread into a nationwide hit.
National Geographic Films
1. "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004) - $119.1 million
Michael Moore's scathing documentary about President George W. Bush and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is the highest-grossing documentary of all time and it isn't even close. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Opening at over $23 million, the movie at the time opened higher than any other documentary had ever grossed in its lifetime. Moore followed up the film with a documentary about the 2016 election and Donald Trump, titled "Fahrenheit 11/9," which refers to the day after he was elected.
Miramax
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Michael Moore, Disneynature and several concert films top the list
Documentaries are rarely big money makers, but they can have the power to influence change and motivate people to action in a way narrative films cannot. So when a documentary does make a splash at the box office, it's an even bigger surprise. This list of the top-15 grossing documentaries ever is an interesting mix of political, nature and concert docs, and several of them likewise went on to win Oscars and critical acclaim. All numbers are domestic totals via Box Office Mojo.