Review: ‘Quest’ Is a Moving Portrait of an American Family

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Barack Obama is not the subject of “Quest,” Jonathan Olshefski’s new documentary, an intimate and patient portrait of a North Philadelphia family. But the film, which begins and ends with presidential elections — Mr. Obama’s in 2008 and his successor’s eight years later — is shadowed, in some ways haunted, by his presence and his temperament. At one point, he appears on television, in the wake of the massacre of school children and their teachers in Newtown, Conn. “These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods,” he says, referring to the places that have been devastated by gun violence. “These children are our children.”

The simple inclusiveness of that idea and the feeling behind it — the sense that this nation, with all of its troubles, is something we’re all in together — may sound especially poignant now, and even a bit quaint. But a similar ethic of solidarity informs every moment of “Quest,” which brings us into the neighborhood and the home of Christopher and Christine’a Rainey and their teenage daughter, PJ.

Christopher is also known as Quest, which is the name of the recording studio where he sits behind the mixing boards as local rappers spit their rhymes. Christine’a is Ma Quest, and the two of them, without vanity or any expectation of praise or reward, serve as mentors, confidants and semi-parental figures for the people around them. Mr. Rainey wakes up at dawn to deliver coupon circulars door to door. His wife works long hours at a shelter for survivors of domestic violence. If you lived in North Philly, you would want to know them. “Quest” offers the gift of imagining that you do, even as it honors their complicated, sometimes opaque individuality.

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Mr. Olshefski doesn’t pry too intrusively into their lives. He and his crew record only what the Raineys are willing to tell and show, and a story takes shape in response to events in their lives. Time flows like a current rather than advancing steadily according to the calendar or the clock. Mr. Obama’s first term passes in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, PJ and her father are talking about Mitt Romney as the 2012 election draws near.

Politics is part of their world, and some of the issues that have recently galvanized public debate — health care, addiction, crime, tensions between the police and African-American citizens — figure prominently in “Quest.” Gun violence affects the Raineys with direct and traumatic force, disrupting the film’s calm, contemplative rhythm. (There’s another, blessedly benign twist later on.) The disaster that strikes them is upsetting, and the stoicism with which they keep going is at least equally moving.

But the movie doesn’t hold up its subjects as symbols of suffering or as emblems of strength. The Raineys themselves make no such claim: They take pride in the normalcy of their lives. When Christine’a hears Donald J. Trump making a pitch to “the African-Americans” who he believes live in unrelieved squalor, she responds with disgust: “You have no idea how we live.”

Is it too much to hope that he watches “Quest”? Its power lies in its attention to the drama of everyday existence, and Mr. Olshefski’s sharp eye for character. We track PJ’s adolescent moods, the tenderness and occasional tension that defines her parents’ relationship, and also the ups and downs of other friends and kin. Ms. Rainey’s older son, William, begins treatment for brain cancer as he’s about to become a father. A talented rapper named Price, one of Mr. Rainey’s creative collaborators and a drug user and alcoholic, squanders his promise and his friend’s good will as he fights his habit.

The grace with which the family faces these hardships is the very definition of self-reliance. The hope that they might find some relief — in the form of economic security, a more responsive government, more hours in the day — is what makes “Quest” a deeply political film even as it is heartbreakingly clear about the limits of politics. Mr. Obama’s line about the common American destiny is echoed and complicated in another speech, during an anti-violence rally not far from the Raineys’ home. Noting the absence of pop stars and politicians from the scene — “Where’s Beyoncé now?” “Where’s Rihanna now?” — an activist insists that “our first role models need to be us.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more succinct definition of what it means to be a citizen, and I’ve rarely seen a movie about citizenship as quietly eloquent as “Quest.”