The Case Against 8 is a never-more-than-ordinary documentary about a never-less-than-extraordinary series of events.

Needless, theatricality proves to be its main undoing. In one scene, Ted Olson reads back one of his responses from court (with treacle-thick smugness). You can almost see a translucent American flag fluttering nobly behind him. Ridiculous.

And as for the music. Most of it sounds as if it has just been flayed straight from a Simon Cowell-produced Saturday evening tearjerker. It isn’t so much a moving score as it is an audition for an X-Factor weepy.

The Case Against 8, or at least its content, is far too important to be depicted as an overly long reality television sob-story. Justice may have been served. Its story, sadly, has not.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

DIRECTOR: Ben Cotner, Ryan White

SYNOPSIS: A behind-the-scenes look inside the case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Shot over five years, the film follows the unlikely team that took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the US Supreme Court.