Review: The American President

During a particularly tough election year where arrogant Conservative rival Robert Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss) is running on a ‘family values’ campaign, widowed incumbent U.S. President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) begins dating GDC lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), creating awkwardness for both of their respective colleagues. Shepherd’s advisors in particular are warning him that despite high approval ratings, he really needs to not do anything controversial this close to the election. Shawna Waldron is Shepherd’s daughter, Martin Sheen is Shepherd’s long-time friend and Chief-of-Staff A.J., Michael J. Fox is the passionate policy advisor Lewis Rothschild, David Paymer plays White House pollster Stanley Greenberg, Anna Deavere Smith plays press secretary Robin, John Mahoney is Sydney’s displeased boss, Wendie Malick is Sydney’s co-worker, whilst Anne Haney and Samantha Mathis play White House secretaries.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (“A Few Good Men”, “The Social Network”) essentially gives us the romantic comedy version of his subsequent TV success “The West Wing” with this thoroughly winning 1995 film from director Rob Reiner (“This is Spinal Tap”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “A Few Good Men”). Reiner’s last really good film to date, it boasts a never more likeable Michael Douglas, Annette Bening’s best work to date, future president Martin Sheen doing rock-solid supporting work, and the constant scene-stealing of Michael J. Fox. If you don’t find this one enjoyable…it’s on you.

The highlight of the film for me is the snappy interplay and typical Sorkin walk-and-talk stuff that was embraced here and on “The West Wing” but admittedly started to grate after that. Here and on that show, it works. Is Michael Douglas’ Clinton-lite president too good to be true? Possibly, but Obama seems like a pretty decent fella and isn’t it nice to think that the guy with his finger on the big red button is a swell guy? It’s much nicer than a serial adulterer, a known liar, a bumbling buffoon war-monger, or a noted pussy-grabber in the top job. I really like the idea of tackling the issue of a widowed President wanting to date someone. It would be difficult and indeed proves to be here, albeit done in very Hollywood fashion. Honestly, this really is ‘President gets himself a girlfriend’ stuff, or “The West Wing: The RomCom Years”.

Michael Douglas may be more well known for sleazy roles, but he’s actually immensely appealing here, even if I say co-star Martin Sheen made for the much better president (Forget Morgan Freeman, I want Martin Sheen’s voice narrating my life story!). Douglas’ big speech is some of Sorkin’s best-ever dialogue and…pure horseshit. Even now presidents would never defend flag burning and support gun control on this level while in office. Obama kinda did the latter, but not really, he was a bit half-hearted on it. Still…it’s truly one hell of a speech and Douglas delivers it very persuasively enough that only political nerds like me will be hearing alarm bells. It’s a lot of fun watching Douglas, Sheen, and Fox do their thing, though in hindsight you do now watch Fox’s every move and it’s hard not to notice what he’s doing with his hands. We now know why. Sheen and Douglas share great chemistry together, though the entire White House staff of character actors is tops.

As for Annette Bening, she gets her best comedic showing here as far as I’m concerned. She doesn’t play a dumb character, but she’s rendered a ditz when around the President and Bening plays ditzy really well. Here she’s got some substance, and eventually her foot-in-mouth disease subsides somewhat. Those early scenes are the film’s comic highlight though, it’s hilarious watching Bening put her foot down her own throat repeatedly, whilst Douglas realising that carrying out the most basic of tasks like buying flowers for someone proves to be a comically difficult problem for the leader of the free world.

The issues of politics and the media may have changed (a bit) since 1995, but the quality of this film holds up. Really well-made, with terrific comedic timing by everyone here. All of them are pitch-perfect. The only thing in the entire film that for me doesn’t quite make sense and never did back in 1995 either is the idea that Douglas’s character should be grilled for being a widowed president who wants to start dating again. It’s fascinating to watch the dating thing play out, as I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy but I couldn’t quite work out what the moral issue was. How is it going against family values exactly? Is he supposed to leave his daughter with just one parental influence for the rest of her life? Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong about single parents, I just don’t see why a widowed father suddenly dating again should be considered morally questionable. Thankfully the dirt campaign becomes a little more complex than that after a while, and it’s not too far removed from the shit Fox News tried to pull on Obama actually, just without the romantic angle. Speaking of the political side of the film, Richard Dreyfuss later played Dick Cheney and here he basically plays a Cheney-esque wannabe president elect whose name sounds an awful lot like Rumsfeld. Weird, given we were still in the Clinton years, but you can’t help but think about it watching in 2017. Dreyfuss is typically excellent as the ambitious prick who will do whatever it takes to win, a real boo-hiss villain. Look out for a really lovely performance by Shawna Waldron as Douglas’ daughter, she’s terrific and gets the film’s first really funny moment via an amusing musical choice.

Irresistible entertainment, and that’s all it’s attempting to be. This is formula filmmaking expertly done on all fronts. The cast is excellent, but especially Annette Bening. This one might be even better than I remembered from my first viewing. You might have a similar experience rediscovering it if you saw it back in 1995.

Rating: B