2017 review worth repeating:
Still in Emma Thompson mood, here she plays (with a somewhat wavering accent) the First Lady to John Travolta's Governor in Elaine May's adaptation of a novel by 'Anonymous' - Joe Klein - based on Clinton's first candidacy. Adrian Lester (good) gets sucked into the tour - it sort of reminded me of Almost Famous in that regard. It's very well, subtly written e.g. how well-oiled Lester's amateur team of aides has become, how the relationships (Billy Bob Thornton, Maura Tierney (ER), Kathy Bates) develop. Indeed, in just two shots, we learn that Lester and Tierney are in a relationship, and that Bates and Stacy Edwards (that was a hard name to track down) are too.
And it's subtle in that we are presented with who this man is right from the off - a serial adulterer and maker up of convenient tales. In fact in a way it's odd how Lester is so sucked in knowing those things. Though the Governor is charismatic...
With Rob Reiner, and a good performance from Larry Hagman, Diane Ladd, Alison Janney, Caroline Aaron. Abd Tony Shaloub.
Photographed by Michael Ballhaus - the widescreen is well used. Music from Ry Cooder. Quite long, but good.
I wonder why Lester didn't stay in Hollywood...
“It was kind of hard to swallow, because surely if you executed a role like that to any degree of believability you were a shoo-in for major auditions for other major roles… But it didn’t happen. Costa-Gavras wanted me to play the lead role in a movie. And Sidney Lumet was doing an updated version of 12 Angry Men and offered me a choice of two roles, so I went home thinking, ‘Great!’ Then both films fell through – they couldn’t get the money – and I sat at home unemployed for a year.
'Radio Times' December 2011.
Today. I had forgotten Nichols made this when watching Regarding Henry yesterday. He's of course a great actor's director and likes leaving things in long takes.
There are a couple of outstanding zoom or track-ins - one is Lester looking at a donut shop out of his hotel window and the camera goes all the way in to it. There's another great one on a balcony in which we go in close and Travolta and Thompson. Terrific work from Ballhaus and operator Peter Hutchison. It was edited by Arthur Schmidt.
It's a clever film because you are quite sucked in by the charisma of the candidate at the outset only to realise by the end that's he's a terrible shit and has built his campaign on lies - this demonstrated in the brilliant way we see him shake hands, something that's been identified at the outset. But the Lester character renounces his integrity and stays with the senator. An honest film about politics.
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| I love something about the colours and textures of this shot |
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| Another amazing shot as the camera lifts off the highway and up... |
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