Courting Condi

Courting Condi is a 2008 film by British filmmaker Sebastian Doggart that portrays the quest of a love-struck man, actor Devin Ratray, who wants to win the heart of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Plot Devin Ratray is a musician and besotted admirer of Condoleezza Rice, 'Condi,' who travels across America, learning more about Rice from those who knew her. He speaks to her childhood friends in Birmingham, Alabama. In Denver, Colorado, he performs at Red Rocks, where he meets some of her former teachers, and the one man to whom Rice has been engaged, Rick Upchurch. Upchurch tells Devin that Rice made an oath to God not to have sex before she got married, and deduces that her continued single status and her enduring Christianity confirm that she is still a virgin. Ratray follows Rice's rise to Provost of Stanford University, where he discovers that, while in that position, she departed from the practice of applying affirmative action to tenure. In Los Angeles, he is given courtship advice by Adrian Grenier and cult comedian Jim Norton and is presented with a power ballad to send to Condi from Oscar nominated songwriter Carol Connors. When he arrives in Washington, D.C., he is assisted by Republican strategist Frank Luntz and is counseled by Newsweek editor Eleanor Clift. Ratray also learns from various people he meets along the way about Rice's controversial statements to the 9/11 Commission. Through interactions with and clips featuring Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, 9/11 Commission investigator Richard Ben-Veniste, and Congressman David Price, Ratray gets a fuller picture of how Rice's political positions and political philosophy developed and changed over the years. Finally, Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post reporter and author of a book about Rice and the Bush Administration, discusses Rice's involvement with the government's use of torture during the War on Terror. Style The film's creators describe it as a 'musical docu-tragi-comedy'. It uses an actor, Ratray, to interview friends, relatives and colleagues of Dr. Rice. It combines interviews, archive footage, animated stills, dramatizations and original songs. Critics described this hybrid genre as "a heady melange of styles and aims" and "a strange mash-up by many measures."