Primary Colors

(Dir. Mike Nichols) (1998)

Probably the best political road movie, almost a primer of American Democratic Presidential politics.  Great direction by Mike Nichols, solid performances and a sensational script (by Elaine May).

The book published by Anonymous (Joe Klein) is a roman à clef about the Bill Clinton comeback campaign of 1992.  Profane, salty, clever, hilarious and sad, it is a fascinating story of the politician’s challenge to be all things to all, a marathon, run as a sprint.

John Travolta is uncanny as Governor* Jack Stanton.  In P’s favourite scene, where Stanton addresses a union crowd in a cold, closed-down factory, he seems to be Bill Clinton, and even more chilling, his blather actually moves you.  Emma Thompson was never better as the long-suffering Hilary knock-off, and you gain insight from the two leads’ preformance into the power of a driven couple with complementary skills.

Adrian Lester, as Henry Burton, a notional Nick Carraway, plunges in to the vortex of the Stanton campaign, romancing political aide Daisy (Maura Tierney), learning from adoptive mother and political dust-buster Libby (Kathy Bates), teaming up with Stanton’s James Carville-style strategist Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton) and investigating the sordid past of rival Governor, Fred Picker (Larry Hagman, in a star turn).

Great scenes abound: The Factory Speech; Jack Stanton has yet another apple fritter at Krispy Kreme; He uplifts illiterates at an adult literacy meeting with fake  stories about his Uncle Charlie; He then talks Henry Burton into cutting class tomorrow (“I’m sure the kids won’t mind”); Susan tells Henry that the best people never learn to avoid getting burned; His girlfriend doubts his sincerity; The team has to take up with Mrs Stanton the delicate matter of her husband’s peccadillos; At a thanksgiving party, Stanton boogies (badly) on the dance floor (it takes a great dancer such as Travolta to make such a realistic hash of it); Libby tells Henry what a privileged life he’s led; and then there are the meetings, at Willy’s BBQ place (P must one day go there), interminable hotels, the Governor’s mansion, Neo-Bwana Land…all round, a thick tasty slice of modern American life.

[*In America, any officeholder seems to retain the status long after leaving office.]

[** During the ‘policy discussion’ at the BBQ place (the BBQ opportunities offer, for P, the best reason to visit Arkansas), Richard starts crying during a Southern Mommathon, and Jack and Co. soothe him by singing the most damn American song ever – ‘and a Southern Governor wrote it’.  That song is You Are my Sunshine, co-written by Louisiana Governor Jimmie H Davis, neatly described in An American Melodrama thus: “It seems odd that such a sunny fellow is also a relentless segregationist and was the author of the heartless legislation that took Negro women with illegitimate children off the relief rolls and left them to hustle or starve.”]