“Frontrunner” follows
the presidential campaign of Dr. Massouda Jalal, a woman who ran in
the 2004 Afghanistan presidential election. The film moves from her
impressive performance in the 2002 interim presidental election through her
2004 campaign. Jalal entered a heated political environment emerging from
Taliban rule, and seeing the struggles and successes of her campaign was
fascinating as an outsider.

While this subject was fascinating, the film itself was a bit
disappointing. I just don’t believe there was enough meat for this to be a
90-minute feature film. Sometimes, instead of using other techniques to
communicate some of the periods of waiting, the film just showed the
waiting. This might have been fine once or twice, but it felt overused in
this film. I also would have liked to see more interviews with the
public, both her supporters and her detractors.

This wasn’t a bad film, but I think it may have been better as a
60-minute PBS special (or if it had had more of the public voice).