All things considered the film is an excellent first draft of a film that might be extremely valuable with a few more authoritative talking heads and some better editing. That's a little distracting and the film clearly needs better editing. The film also moves in and out, from 1855 to 1830 to 1840 to whenever, with no seeming rhyme or reason. For a film that spends a lot of time talking about Lincoln's inner life and his psychological functioning, there are no Psychologists or Psychiatrists among the talking heads, which is clearly a limitation. It's fairly interesting and rarely touched upon by others, although, quite frankly, most of the comments are from B or C team 'experts' and about the only A team player is Gore Vidal. At his side is his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln ( Sally Field, typically sturdy and spunky), who is sometimes seen as a social climber but here is focused as wife and mother.

He communicates through stories and parables. The talking heads talk about Lincoln's suicidal ideation, his tendency toward depression, his heterosexual behavior, etc. He is soft-spoken, a little hunched, exhausted after the years of war, concerned that no more troops die. Jayanti often visits the geographic areas and tries to reconstruct what life must have looked like at the time. A lot of the material comes from Lincoln's correspondence and there are many photos I haven't here-to-fore seen. The documentary (aka 'movie') is 2+ hours long and it covers a good portion of Lincoln's life, from his earliest years with his father through the romances, adventures, and jobs he held. A tall, dark shadow hovering over all lesser shadows, Lincoln is the only figure other. You probably know Jayanti from his well-regarded 'Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine' (2003). Lincoln was, in Vidal's view, the pivotal figure in that movement. There are so many good films and documentaries about Lincoln one has to wonder what would you produce another one? For producer-director Vikran Jayanti the reason appears to give us more insight into Lincoln's internal life and to provide some more details about his early life.

Lincoln vidal