3 Poli-Biopics I'm Finally Getting Around To

Apparently because the nation has been enraptured by politics over the last several years, Hollywood has stepped up to produce a number of films covering controversial political figures from years past. Here I’m going to take a look at three of them – in chronological order, both by the years the films were released, and the years in history the movies take place. So that means we begin with:

LBJ (Rob Reiner, 2016) 

Although it skips around through the early ‘60s, Rob Reiner’s 19th film largely concerns Lyndon B. Johnson’s experience in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination in 1963. Woody Harrelson, in heavy make-up and prosthetics, plays LBJ, who is suddenly thrust into the presidency, a position he wanted, but not under such circumstances. Harrelson’s LBJ argues with advisors (at one point while on the toilet), and Bobby Kennedy (Michael Stahl-David), and has a few tender moments with his wife Lady Bird Johnson, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who has a fakes nose that is as pointy and down-turned as Harrelson’s prosthetic.

There are also choice turns by Richard Jenkins as the racist Senator Richard Russell, Bill Pullman as the smug, Senator Ralph Yarborough, and the dead on Jeffrey Donovan as John F. Kennedy (Donovan also played Bobby Kennedy in Clint Eastwood’s J. EDGAR). Harrelson does a admirable job as LBJ, but despite his facial embellishments he doesn’t really get lost in the Texan democrat’s persona.

Despite this, LBJ is Rob Reiner’s best film in years (maybe decades), but with its TV movie-style melodrama it’s far from essential.

CHAPPAQUIDDICK (Dir. John Curran, 2017) 

Jason Clarke (ZERO DARK THIRTY, FIRST MAN) portrays Senator Ted Kennedy in this tense treatise that depicts the 1969 (5o years ago this month) accident in which Kennedy drove his car into Poucha Pond in Chappaquiddick killing a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne, played by Kate Mara (House of Cards, American Horror Story, THE MARTIAN). The flames of the budding scandal are fanned by the fact that Kennedy waited 10 hours before reporting the accident, and attending Kopechne's funeral, wearing a neck brace, although he wasn’t injured in the incident.

Clarke’s Kennedy grapples with his guilt versus his ambition as his lawyers, including two comic actors in serious roles - Ed Helms as Joe Gargan, and Jim Gaffigan as Paul F. Markham - who try to convince him to turn himself in. On the opposing side, his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., (Bruce Dern) says to him “alibi.” Curran, whose seventh feature this is, has fashioned a historical thriller that’s compelling throughout. It’s also a devastatingly dark reminder of how much tragedy the Kennedy dynasty suffered in the ‘60s.

THE FRONT RUNNER (Dir. Jason Reitman, 2018) 

Unlike the previous two films reviewed above, this drama is about a now obscure political figure, Senator Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman), whose chances of winning the presidency in 1988 went down the tubes when his affair with model Donna Rice (Sara Paxton) was exposed by the press. The film features a lot of consultants strategizing about Hart’s campaign, and his indiscretions, while the candidate repeatedly says that it’s none of anyone’s “goddamn business!” Speaking of business, one major factor in Hart’s downfall was a photo of him taken with Rice on his lap on a yacht named “Monkey Business.”

Surprisingly this photo isn’t touched on in this film, except in a few quick mentions. I was expecting a full re-enactment, and repeated showings of it when it got leaked. This surprised me because it was one of the aspects that people (like me) who lived through the scandalous events, most remember. The film’s editing, by Stefan Grube, is often choppy, yet the film is often drawn out and dull – a good 20-30 minutes could have easily been cut out. 

Under his obvious wig, Jackman is fine as Hart, but the part is underwritten with a lot of repetitive dialogue. Maybe that’s accurate to the real Hart, but it makes for some shake your head moments.

But although the movie is the weakest of the three covered in this post, it has the strongest supporting cast. Vera Farmiga plays Hart’s wife, Oletha, J.K. Simmons works it as Hart’s campaign manager, Alfred Molina portrays the Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post, Kevin Pollack briefly appears as the Miami Herald publisher, and comedian Bill Burr smarms his way through a role as a reporter. THE FRONT RUNNER doesn’t have enough to say to make it truly worthwhile, but parts of it are watchable, and at least its attempt to make a statement about tabloidism infiltrating the political system show some admirable ambition.

Post note: At one point in THE FRONT RUNNER, Alfred Molina’s Ben Bradlee says to a group of reporters: “I swear this is true. New Year’s Eve, after Jack died, Lyndon Johnson sites down with a whole bunch of us, pulls us in close and says. ‘Boys, you’re gonna see a whole lot of women coming in and out of my hotel suites. I want you to pay us the same courtesy you did Jack.”

Whether or not this is true, it’s an element that isn’t included in LBJ, reviewed above.

More later…

The Lovely, Lyrical Yet Oddly Titled LOVE IS STRANGE

Now playing at a indie art house near me:

LOVE IS STRANGE (Dir. Ira Sachs, 2014)

I first became aware of the great actors John Lithgow and Alfred Molina back in the early ‘80s. Lithgow from his Oscar-nominated role as a trans-sexual ex-football player in George Roy Hill’s THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP; Molina from his brief but memorable turn as Indiana Jones’ untrustworthy guide in the classic opening sequence of Steven Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (“Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip!”)

In the three decades since, both thespians have portrayed a wide range of characters, some upstanding; some sinister (both have made excellent villains), but neither has come across more human, or with as much warmth as in Iran Sach’s fifth feature as writer/director, LOVE IS STRANGE, opening this weekend at an art house near me.

The film opens with the wedding of Lithgow and Molina, as a gay couple who’ve been together for 39 years, in a low key ceremony in a community garden in Lower Manhattan. News of the marriage leads to Molina losing his job as choir director for a Catholic School, leaving the couple unable to afford their beloved New York apartment.

While searching for a new place to stay, Lithgow, a retired painter, goes to live with his nephew (Darren Burrows), his wife Marissa Tomei, and their withdrawn teenage son (Charlie Tahan) while Molina moves in with two neighbors (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez), a couple of gay cops who love to party.

With Lithgow having to sleep in a bunkbed in Tahan’s room, and Molina crashing on the couch of Jackson and Perez’s party pad, their living situations are a bit strained. Tomei, a successful novelist, finds it hard to write with Lithgow doddering about, but when she gets him out of the house to work on a new painting on the roof of their building, she questions the appropriateness of his using her son’s school friend (Eric Tabach) as a model.

Sach's oddly titled film is spare story-wise, but rich with feeling and relatable details dealing with having to adjust to change. “When you live with people, you know them better than you care to,” Lithogow tells Molina in one of their touching late night phone conversations.

None of Sachs’ characters make any false moves – there’s no forced quirkiness or any force fed one-liners. We almost feel like we are eavesdropping on a small connected group of real people. It’s a lovely, tender experience given an emotionally gripping gravitas by its well chosen cast. Especially, and obviously, in the understated yet piercing performances of Lithgow and Molina, who just may be the most convincing screen couple of the year.

More later...

AN EDUCATION: The Film Babble Blog Review

AN EDUCATION (Dir. Lone Scherfig, 2009)

It certainly isn’t a “meet cute” when 16 year old school girl Carey Mulligan is offered a ride home from Peter Sarsgaard in his snazzy sports car, but it isn’t exactly a “meet creep” either. Though Sarsgaard has a creepy reputation (his monologue on SNL a few years back was completely about how creepy he can be) here his character is a charming witty Englishman who has the ticket to an opulent new life for Mulligan, one filled with elegant culture and reams of romance. Or so it seems.

Set in a pre-Beatlemania Britain that Mulligan repeatedly calls “boring”, and based on a recently published memoir by Lynn Barber, the story is a simple coming of age one. Mulligan is impressed by Sarsgaard – a man able to charm her parents (a wonderfully befuddled Alfred Molina and a smirking Cara Seymour) into letting her go to a concert and dinner for their first date. 

Sarsgaard then reaches further with overnight trips to Oxford and Paris while Mulligan’s school mates blush with envy and her teacher (Olivia Williams) and headmistress (Emma Thompson) disapprove.

Our pithy protagonist is a bit taken aback when she discovers that her new beau is an art thief and a slick wheeler and dealer involved in blockbusting (the practice of moving minorities into apartments to make old racist women vacate so the apartments can be purchased cheaply), but she’s still soft for Sarsgaard.

As the first solo screenplay written by Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity”, “About A Boy”, “Fever Pitch” and their respective film adaptations) one of the best modern novelists working today, AN EDUCATION is tightly written with sharp realistic dialogue and a touching tone. It is, perhaps is a bit too tightly written as the last act has some pat payoffs and all too tidy summations of character’s realizations. 

That doesn't stop it from being a sweet little gem of a movie with great chemistry between the actors and a very satisfying ending. I doubt it will win any awards but I bet it’ll make a bunch of “best of 2009” year end lists. Although, not sure yet if it’ll make mine.

More later...