Dolores

Peter Bratt directs this passionate but by-the-numbers documentary about Dolores Huerta, the labor leader who helped form the nation’s first farm workers union in the 1960s. Although frequently misidentified and dismissed as Cesar Chavez’s “assistant” or even his “girlfriend,” the twice-divorced mother of eleven was just as instrumental as Chavez and the rest of the movement’s male leaders in organizing workers and forming the union. The story of such a bold and brave human being deserves a similarly bold and brave documentary treatment, but Dolores rarely strays from its prosaic template, offering little more than a rote, bullet-point biography of a Great Woman. There are some genuine moments courtesy of Huerta’s children, many of them still emotionally raw from a childhood spent on her sidelines, but despite (or perhaps because of) the cooperation and participation of Huerta, the film only occasionally feels personal. This is more a monument than a movie. D.B.