On a scale of 1 to 10 I would have to say that "In Bed with an Elephant" gets a 9 out of 10. The movie is very interesting to myself as I have not watched many documentaries that show the history of the world from outside the American perspective. This movie makes it clear that the focus is on Canada and is viewed through the lens of Canadians. Seeing how Canadians viewed the United States over the course of history and how the relationship between the two have changed, was a rather refreshing revisit of history I thought I already knew. Whenever history classes in the United States talk about history, the viewpoints of other countries are hardly mentioned. This movie did a good job showing the changing relationship between the United States and Canada from the perspective of Canada.
The material in the movie itself was quite diverse. A lot of time and effort must have been put into researching all the material covered in this movie. This movie also does a great job keeping pace and does not seem to slow down too much. There is never a point where the movie focuses too much on one point in history or visual. Instead, the movie introduces new things that help explain what is happening at any given point (for example, photographs/film of events, interviews with various people, narration). Mixing it up helps this movie keep the attention of the audience, and also helps make it easier to remember what the movie is trying to convey.
The only downside about this movie is that it can be seen as a bit Anti-American. Every now and then you get another reminder that Americans are power-hungry and incredibly nationalistic. I understand that America is not a perfect country, but some of the generalizations made don't do this movie any favors. I suppose this is to be expected when the movie tells the story of history from a certain perspective. That perspective is bound to have a different opinion on the things that have happened. The other downside of this movie is that the narrator is rather one-note. Every now and then you think he's going to have some emotional range with his voice, but then he stops himself and keeps it relatively monotone. This isn't terrible, but it does make the movie slightly boring in that regard. Besides those downsides, I rather enjoyed the movie and the new perspective it showed me.