The ostensible draw of “The Rachel Divide” is a chance to see Rachel Dolezal — the former N.A.A.C.P. chapter president of Spokane, Wash., who was the subject of a news media firestorm that began in 2015 after reports revealed that she was white — as a human being instead of a caricature.
Laura Brownson’s documentary accomplishes that much. It’s painful to see Ms. Dolezal, whose legal name is now Nkechi Amare Diallo, gawked at in public, and the attention is certainly unfair to her children, who didn’t court any publicity. To the extent that the film has a perspective, it’s summed up by one of her sons: All she did was say that she was black, and the world lost its mind.
Trailer: ‘The Rachel Divide’
A preview of the film.
By NETFLIX on Publish Date April 19, 2018. .But basic sympathy is where the usefulness of “The Rachel Divide” ends. Ms. Brownson hasn’t figured out how to construct a movie around a figure who essentially owes her fame to the obfuscation of her past. Anything Ms. Dolezal says has to be taken with such a large grain of salt that it’s not clear why it’s worth listening.
To be fair, Ms. Dolezal comes across as sincere, and the film devotes ample time to the criticisms directed at her. It’s hard not to gawk when she ponders what to check in the “race” box on a form after the birth of her latest son, Langston Attickus Dolezal, or visits the D.M.V. as part of the name change. But such forehead-slapping moments go no more than skin-deep.
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