‘Homegrown’ Review: Documentary Embeds With Trump Supporters Ahead of Jan. 6, to Absorbing Effect

With Homegrown, filmmaker Michael Premo embeds himself among Trump supporters (some of them members of far-right Proud Boys) during the run-up to the 2020 election to produce a compelling portrait of people usually demonized and dismissed by the mainstream media — or at best, ridiculed by the likes of The Daily Show comedian Jordan Klepper and others.

Although Premo’s editing gives the subjects plenty of rope and room to espouse their right-wing views, we also see them talking tenderly to their partners or having breakfast with their kids. Some of the subjects are of mixed ethnicity themselves and insist they don’t embrace the racist agenda of other MAGA folk, even if they keep hyping the superiority of “Western civilization.” Nevertheless, Homegrown doesn’t fawn or flatter its subjects. We also see them participating in violent protests and eventually, in the case of one named Christopher Quaglin, taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Premo himself (who, incidentally, is Black) films Quaglin from right in the middle of the crush, as the mob tries to enter the Capitol building.

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Premiering in the Critics’ Week sidebar at the Venice Film Festival, Homegrown will probably travel, although its detached, vérité tone may put off programmers and audiences expecting loud denunciations of the politics and opinions expressed here. Plus, it’s a shame that one of its most interesting characters, Proud Boy Thad — who in the early running teams up with Black Lives Matter leader Jacarri Kelley to promote multicultural tolerance in the movement — fades out of the story for a long time, only to come back toward the end having experienced major life changes the filmmakers presumably didn’t have a chance record.

That means more airtime spent with Quaglin, the New Brunswick, New Jersey, resident who, when not traveling to rallies and protests, spends much of his time building cabinets and shelves for the baby he’s expecting with his partner (as well as those for his other “babies,” his assault rifle collection). His partner is a nurse who never appears on screen, although her voice on the phone can be heard faintly when she calls to check that Quaglin is keeping his face mask on at all times while attending pro-Trump protests (he’s not), lest he bring home COVID-19 and endanger her own life and the life of their baby. As soon as he’s off the call, Quaglin grumbles about her worries to his pals, who, being MAGA folk, start spouting conspiracy theories about COVID being a hoax. Although Premo’s camera merely observes these interactions, it’s hard not to feel sometimes like we’re watching a pilot for a dark sitcom about another lazy idiot dad, like The Honeymooners or Married … With Children but with tear gas and QAnon nonsense.

In passing, Quaglin mentions that his partner is ethnically Chinese, and was adopted by Caucasian parents who vote Democrat while their daughter is pro-Trump and agrees with her spouse about the MAGA agenda. (Apart from the COVID conspiracy theory stuff, presumably.) In some ways, it’s in this intersectional space that Homegrown becomes most interesting — and timely, given that support for Trump has been growing among Black and Latino voters, according to recent polls for the 2024 election.

We get some idea of how complicated identity can be for these people when we follow Thad, a Texan who is a bit elusive about his own ethnicity onscreen. (Premo describes him as a conservative Latino in his director’s statement.) Thad seems to want to be a bridge between his conservative buddies and his friend Jacarri, whom he asks to speak at a rally in Salt Lake City, perhaps hoping to prove that conservatism and anti-racism can be reconciled. Alas, when the two different factions meet, the combustible results suggest that was never going to be an easy needle to thread, either back in 2020 or now.

Ultimately, as absorbing as the filmmaking here is, in rhetorical, cinematic or political science terms, it’s hardly breaking new ground in our understanding of the so-called Patriot movement. But Premo’s commitment and grit are palpable — especially when one notes how close to the action he gets during the Capitol insurrection, so that the camera shows every jostle and bump. The sequence, full of shots and footage never seen before , is as chilling, horrifying and disgusting as the many other clips we’ve already seen shot by others.

But especially in the light of the recent effort by Democrats to emphasize how weird and ridiculous the right has become, perhaps the most striking sequences are not the passages of violence but the interludes of Quaglin and his chums looking comically inept, petty and just plain stupid as they get their panties in the biggest of bunches over the mere mention of Antifa antagonists in the vicinity. There’s something Keystone Kops about their macho swaggering, and the opportunity to laugh at them will be irresistible to many liberal viewers.