Knock Down the House

Knock Down the House is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Rachel Lears. It revolves around the primary campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin, four progressive Democrats endorsed by Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress who ran for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.

It had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2019. It was released on May 1, 2019, by Netflix.

Plot
The film follows four female Democrats who decided to run for Congress in the 2018 United States elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia. Vilela, Bush, and Swearengin lost in the primary round, but Ocasio-Cortez won the election.

Cast

 * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
 * Amy Vilela
 * Cori Bush
 * Paula Jean Swearengin

Production
The day after Donald Trump's election, Rachel Lears began working on her new documentary film. She reached out to organizations such as Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats to find "charismatic female candidates who weren't career politicians, but had become newly galvanized to represent their communities." The search led her to four female candidates: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia. Lears raised $28,111 for the project through Kickstarter.

Release
The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2019. Shortly after, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film for $10 million. The film was also screened at the True/False Film Festival, the Athena Film Festival, the South by Southwest, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. It was released on May 1, 2019.

Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 7.76/10.The website's critical consensus reads, "A galvanizing glimpse behind the scenes of a pivotal election, Knock Down the House should prove engrossing for viewers of all political persuasions." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave the film a grade of B, saying: "Stylistically, the film isn't at all fussy: on-screen graphics are straightforward and informative, and Lears leaves the editorializing out of her introductory captions, though the film's score often proves manipulative during the most unnecessary of times." Amy Nicholson of Variety wrote: "That Lears and co-writer Robin Blotnick made a real movie with intelligent camerawork and storytelling on a budget so small that they each pulled double duty as DP and editor, respectively, is a tribute to the energy of every woman who pledged that in 2018 they would make a difference." Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a pretty extraordinary cinematic artifact." Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying: "While this is not Frederick Wiseman-esque pure 'direct cinema' there are enough sequences that lean into that fly-on-the-wall type of film-making." Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and described it as "a worthwhile reminder for American citizens of the importance of making one's voice heard." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, who gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, wrote: "The fighting spirit of this female quartet blazes through every frame of this galvanizing film."