Access isn’t everything. For “The Final Year,” the director Greg Barker and his crew were able to follow four vital members of Barack Obama’s administration as they worked to keep the United States out of war, promote better relations with Cuba and deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Secretary of State John Kerry; the ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power; the national security adviser Susan Rice; and the deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes are all seen up close and personal as they globe trot in pursuit of what they see as noble aims.

For much of its first hour, this movie is tepid and self-congratulatory, a quick-cutting advertisement for itself. Why Mr. Barker thought it worth preserving Mr. Kerry’s “I’ve been very blessed to be able to go through a progression of experiences which underscore the value of experience” sound bite is a mystery. There’s some juice in Mr. Rhodes’s reaction, more bruised than angry, to a profile in The New York Times Magazine, in which he is portrayed as finding the Washington press corps both ignorant and credulous. Current events arguably place some of Mr. Rhodes’s statements in an interesting perspective.