Senator Joe Lieberman, who represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, waves to a crowd. (Courtesy of “Centered: Joe Lieberman”)
Screen Time gives this film a Melodious Thumbs Up.
Screen Time with Melodie Miller is a review column that looks beyond the trailer and connects audiences to movie perspectives.
Packed with vignettes of wins, losses and reinvention, the 2024 film “Centered: Joe Lieberman” by award-winning writer and director Jonathan Gruber opens on the peaceful protest of the results of the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush at the U.S. Capitol. It fast-forwards to the same location full of violent protesters on January 6, 2021.
The time jump illustrates the stark difference between the earlier measured, centered leadership and the political intolerance that has accumulated over the past two decades. But Gruber brilliantly avoids naming political parties in this scene. Instead, the film invites first-time voters to think independently and reconsider what governance looks like going forward.
“Don’t make a decision based on what you saw on TikTok,” Gruber said. “A voter should vote for a person who treats them with intelligence and doesn’t say ‘I will fix everything for you.’”
Taking initiative to further Joe Lieberman’s message of independence and integrity, University of Colorado Boulder students Samuel Veta, president of the Jewish Student Association, and Sophie Hoffmann, CU representative-at-large, hosted the screening on Oct. 14 at the Visual Arts Complex Building.
Gruber presents country-first values as one way Lieberman forged friendships and coalitions as he sought faithfully to represent Connecticut constituents as a U.S. senator. For Lieberman, leadership meant more than rhetoric — he turned initiative into words and words into action.
“I will go to Washington beholden to no political group. But only to the people of Connecticut and my conscience,” Lieberman said. “I have been persistent… stubbornly bipartisan. I just feel that was always my responsibility to the people who elected me.”
Young voters for values, not parties
Forecasting for the 2026 midterm elections, Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life reported that nearly 50 million Americans ages 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote and could make a significant impact. Generation Z voters want “candidates who share their values,” a UCLA’s Williams Institute School of Law 2026 Midterm Election survey reported.
A 2025 Gallup poll also found 56% of the Gen Z adult respondents identified as independent voters; they’re vigilant about uncovering individual candidates’ values and policies, not deferring to one party or the other.
Joe Lieberman walks confidently in his campaign for a 1970 Connecticut State Senate seat. (Credit courtesy of the Lieberman family)
Lieberman understood his voters’ concerns and spent his career proving the center is not empty. The film shows that taking a centered stance can make a difference in elections and policy.
At 27, Lieberman ran for the Connecticut State Senate with most of his party against him. Then in 1970, the Voting Rights Act lowered the voting age to 18. Yale University students were poised to vote in the local New Haven elections for the first time in 1971, which Lieberman knew would make a difference.
He came to understand the student body’s power when he previously served as an editor of the Yale Daily News. Without Democratic backing for his state senate run, he needed people to support his campaign — so he went to college campuses. He won with an endorsement from first-time voters.
“I had to get workers, and I went to Yale Law. Lo and behold, a big, tall, likable guy from Arkansas, turns out to be Bill Clinton, volunteers,” Lieberman said.
The narration of his career is one of the film’s strengths. Lieberman’s delivery is direct and unpolished, filled with humor and charm that resonates with voters who look for honesty in their political representatives.
Modest and wry in his delivery, Lieberman did not fail to deliver when his party abandoned him. He announced his departure from the Democratic Party with humor and said he would run for the Senate as an independent. He won.
“I didn’t have to worry about offending the sort of power structure in my party, which I had already, nonetheless, been (doing) a pretty good job at offending,” Lieberman said.
Representing Lieberman’s life
As a bipartisan centrist throughout his career, Lieberman was not always moderate and not always liked, but he always tried to solve problems and compromise. He said centrism can be a forum for open, respectful debate to find common ground and get things done.
While Lieberman worked as the Connecticut State Senate majority leader, the film’s executive producer and founder of nonprofit film studio Hidden Light Institute Rob Schwartz served as chief of staff and state political director. Schwartz traveled the state, organizing people to support Lieberman’s future run for governor or U.S. senator.
He said one of Lieberman’s strengths was not being quick to shake a voter’s hand and move on to the next person. Instead, Lieberman was effective at listening to concerns, working with opponents and bringing groups together to advance public policy.
“I saw from a front-row seat his ability to listen with full attention, particularly to people who didn’t agree with him, whether they were elected officials, whether they were constituents,” Schwartz said.
Joe Lieberman exits the presidential limousine alongside longtime opponent and occasional ally, former President George W. Bush. (National Archives and Records Administration, Official U.S. Senate Photo)
“Neither party has a monopoly on good ideas. And, therefore, we ought to sit around a table together as Americans and try to find the best that both parties have to offer and make for progress,” Lieberman said.
Gruber did not shy away from the complex issues in Lieberman’s career. He points out that Lieberman and Clinton had been friends since 1970. Clinton had helped organize student voting blocs to support Lieberman’s run for the Connecticut State Senate. Lieberman was the first Democrat to endorse Clinton’s presidential run.
That friendship changed the day Clinton admitted to sexual involvement with Monica Lewinsky in the White House.
Joe Lieberman shakes hands with his friend, former President Bill Clinton. (Official White House Photo)
“Such behavior is not just inappropriate – it is immoral,” Lieberman said. “And it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family.”
The film does not spare Lieberman from his mistakes, and its candor strengthens both his credibility and Gruber’s commitment to transparency. It argues that a centered leader can work with integrity and admit mistakes, as Lieberman did during the interview process.
Even after supporting the Iraq War cost him his party’s nomination in 2006, Lieberman defended his decision for 20 years. Gruber said the most powerful part of the film was the moment Lieberman said something he had never said in public before:
“Of course, if I had known that…we would have made the mistakes we did after Saddam was overthrown,” Lieberman said. “And that so many lives, Iraqi, mostly, but also American, of course, soldiers, would be lost, and so much money would be spent by the U.S. I probably would have said it’s not worth it.”
Independent thinking may have cost him elections, but Lieberman’s integrity yielded positive results that contributed to passing landmark environmental initiatives, repealing the 2010 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act and it made him the 60th vote to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
Panelists’ reflections
Chancellor Justin Schwartz, Center for Leadership Director Stefanie Johnson and CU Regents Ilana Spiegel and Frank McNulty joined CU Boulder students Veta and Hoffmann for the discussion.
From left to right: Stefanie Johnson, Ilana Spiegel, Samuel Veta, Sophie Hoffmann, Justin Schwartz, CU Boulder Hillel Executive Director Elyana Funk, Rob Schwartz. (Melodie Miller/CU Independent)
Johnson moderated the panel, which spoke in a warm and admiring tone as they reflected on the film. Spiegel and Schwartz highlighted Lieberman’s willingness to listen as a quality they feel is missing in today’s politics.
Spiegel said it is important to “bring together different people to be able to discuss ideas to come up with the best possible solutions to big problems.”
McNulty expressed that our culture and Congress are more divided now than during Lieberman’s time as a senator.
“When Senator Lieberman struck out and created this independent movement in American politics, that really stands out to me,” McNulty said. “He really ended up validating the roles of the two parties.”
When Lieberman left public office in 2013, he thanked Connecticut voters in his farewell speech for asking for nothing in return but that he did what he believed was right.
“It’s called public service, not private, you know, private enrichment,” Gruber said. “Public service is about that, serving the public.”
Gruber encourages students and first-time voters to stay open to opposing ideas. He advised sitting down with a person “you think is your blood enemy and figure out how to talk to them like Joe Lieberman did.”
The film closes with Lieberman citing Psalm 13 from the Hebrew Bible, a prayer thanking God for life’s bounty. He framed his life as a measure of gratitude rather than elections.
“Everybody has defeats,” Lieberman said. “You have to have the faith to go forward, get up off the ground, try the next thing.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Melodie Miller at melodie.miller@colorado.edu
