Lee Daniels’ The Butler
First things first: the title of this review is the only time I will be referring to this film under it’s official, MPAA-mandated name, done in response to a frivolous infringement lawsuit by Warner Bros., who evidently thought Daniels’s thought-provoking, deliberate film might be mistaken for a silent film short of the same name they own the rights to. Whatever, that’s ridiculous Hollywood politics at its most inane, and it detracts from the considerable accomplishment Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong manage here.
The film is “inspired by a true story,” which always tends to be a kiss of death for some films when it comes to critical evaluation. Admittedly, it doesn’t really help “The Butler” and it’s subject, Cecil Gaines, a fictionalized version of Eugene Allen, a real-life, African-American butler who worked at the White House through 30 years and several presidents, from Eisenhower to Reagan. During those decades, he is witness to the civil rights movement in ways that are both personal (with his eldest son becoming an activist) and professional, as several commanders-in-chief deal with the difficult questions expanding civil rights during his lifetime. The last thing we see is Gaines, long retired from the White House, preparing to meet newly-elected president Barack Obama. The image is based on fact, but that doesn’t make it feel less heavy-handed in historical pretentiousness. Regardless, the film (which feels a lot like “Forrest Gump” in its structure) is a moving, deeply powerful piece of moviemaking.
A big part of that comes from the central players both in front of, and behind the camera. Let’s start with Danny Strong, a long-time actor (best known for his work as Jonathan on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) who’s become a hot screenwriter thanks to his acclaimed scripts for a couple of HBO movies, “Recount” and “Game Change” (the latter of which earned him an Emmy). He’s working within the realms of historical politics here as well, albeit in a very different era as those two modern settings, and he has a sharp ear for dialogue that defines character, and emotions that drive the story. I have yet to see “Game Change,” but between “Recount” and “The Butler,” it’s easy to see why he got picked up by Lionsgate to bring the political world of “The Hunger Games” to life with the two-part adaptation of that series’s third novel, Mockingjay. Who would have thought the insecure student from Sunnydale High would become a sharp observer of the American political landscape?
Evidently, director Daniels saw that, and the “Precious” filmmaker follows up his devastating breakthrough film (as well as his 2012 film, “The Paperboy”) with another film about the African-American experience that hits a raw nerve. I compared “The Butler” to “Forrest Gump” a bit earlier, and that’s definitely true, but Daniels isn’t just paying lip service to significant moments in American history, but digs deep, and makes the pain of how African-Americans like Gaines, who watched his father get shot in the cotton fields of the South as a child, and his family fought to get greater acceptance, and rights, in the America of the late 20th Century. Admittedly, the film meanders a little too much at 130 minutes, but Daniels inspires so much from his actors, it almost doesn’t matter.
And about those actors. This is a great cast, both in size and in terms of their performances, starting with Forest Whitaker as Gaines. He anchors the film with his best performance since he won an Oscar for “Last King of Scotland.” But this is a very different role for the actor, as internal and measured as his “Scotland” performance was external and explosive. By design, that makes his work more subtle, and as such, more passive, as history seems to happen TO Gaines, rather than Gaines actually being a part of history, even if he’s actually an integral part of it. As soft-spoken as Whitaker’s performance is, the woman playing his wife, Gloria, is explosive. This is the first time Oprah Winfrey has been in a movie as an actress since 1998’s “Beloved,” and she knocks it out of the park, playing a woman who is loving towards her husband, but still feels alone at home while Cecil is working long hours at the White House. She hits every nuance of the character, and makes Gloria live and breathe as a human being. Her chemistry with Whitaker is note-perfect, and helps pull “The Butler” out of its occasional lulls, and they lead a wonderful cast (with standouts being David Oyelowo as the eldest son, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz as a couple of fellow WH butlers, and the great actors, from Robin Williams and John Cusack to Alan Rickman, who portray the presidents Cecil works under) through a sprawling, emotional epic that brings history into the heart of its audience.
