LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER – The Review

Usually once or twice during the big Summer movie season, the Hollywood studios release a film that’s a bit more serious than the action, science fiction, fantasy comedy blockbusters that normally populate the multiplex during those balmy months. Bypassing the Oscar-bait year-end log jam this time is LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER. Like the recent independent feature FRUITVALE STATION, it concerns a hot-button topic from recent headlines: race relations. While STATION told the story of a fairly recent true-life incident, the new film spans several decades with special emphasis on the tumultuous 1960’s much like the Summer drama of 2011 THE HELP (which later did take home some Oscar gold). So, are movie audiences ready to take a break from the car chases and explosions, and embark on a trip through some dark moments of  America’s recent history? And will Academy voters remember this drama when they begin filling out their ballots in a few months?

When we first meet the title character, eight year-old Cecil Gaines is picking cotton alongside his mother and father in Macon, Georgia circa 1926. A violent tragedy lands him in the plantation mansion were he is trained as a servant. Several years later teenage Cecil leaves the farm and heads North in search of work. The destitute young man is taken in by a the head of a hotel’s staff who trains Cecil in the ways of serving the public. He’s then scooped up by one of the exclusive luxury hotels in Washington DC. Soon Cecil (Forest Whitaker) is married to a former hotel staffer Gloria (Oprah Winfrey), who leaves the hotel world in order to care for their two sons: fun-loving little Charles and serious older brother Lewis (David Oyelowo). One day Cecil is recruited for the biggest job of his service career. He joins the household staff of the White House and is soon the personal butler to the President. Over the next three decades Cecil adjusts to the different administrations at work while he tries to hold his family together through the country’s many social and political changes as Gloria struggles for her own identity, Charles heads off to Vietnam, and Lewis clashes with his father when he joins the civil rights movement.

The thread that unifies this historical journey is the Gaines family, headed by Cecil. For much of the film Whitaker must act as silent observer who conveys much of his thoughts through his eyes as he delivers food and drink. He lets us see the hurt and concern through those tired eyes, hunched shoulders, and tired gait. This even extends to his home life, perhaps compounded by childhood trauma. It’s after he responds to his son’s insolence (oddly over a remark concerning a popular actor) that Whitaker gets to unleash his inner fire and frustration. Being the watcher is a tricky role, but Whitaker draws us to this quiet man. That quiet may be one of the reasons for the wild behavior of his wife Gloria portrayed by Winfrey as neglected woman who only seems to feel alive when she’s partying. And for the first hour, she’s partying hard, always with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Winfrey seems to enjoy shedding her prim TV host persona and truly dives into the earthy role whether dancing, riding her hubby about his job (“How many shoes Miss Jackie got?”), or sharing secretive glances at the lowlife neighborhood ladies man, and numbers runner, played by Terence Howard. Happily she soon appreciates and supports her hubby during his most trying times, most of which are caused by son Lewis. Oyelowo also conveys much of his inner struggle through his eyes as he has a front row seat for most of the civil rights struggle. He feels that he must join the fight and defy Dad, but still yearns for his family. In the more heart-wrenching scenes he dismisses his father’s work, then seconds later his sad eyes show his regret for demeaning him. Whitaker also has great rapport with two staffers that end up being the brothers he never had. Lenny Kravitz is superb as the somber, studious James while Cuba Gooding, Jr. is very entertaining as the clowning, happy-go-lucky Carter.

As for the historical figures that Cecil must serve, we must deal the film makers decision to indulge in a bit of stunt casting. Perhaps this is to give the film a more grand, epic feel, but often it proves to be distracting as we look for make-up tricks, hair styling, and vocal impressions while not giving proper attention to the script. Mostly, they seem to be glorified cameos to entice the movie-going public into the theatre. A couple do play well, particularly X-man James Marsden as JFK who may be a tad too youthful as he speaks in a thick “Baaastan” accent. It’s hard to imagine Robin Williams as a tough WWII general, but he conveys Dwight Eisenhower well enough. Liev Schrieber gives us a coarse, crude LBJ, but he moves a bit too sprightly and doesn’t really commit to that slow Texas drawl. Alan Rickman (yup, Hans Gruber) makes a fairly effective Ronald Reagan with just a hint of his hesitant speaking tone, while Jane Fonda pops in briefly in a wide-eyed, dithering performance as wife Nancy. But the biggest distracting misstep is John Cusack as a sweaty, twitchy, cartoon version of Richard Nixon, complete with flies buzzing about his head (and putty nose). Cusack is one of our finest actors, but this is a big embarrassment.

For the most part, these re-enactors don’t upset the tone of the film too much. Because of the main character’s nature, most of the scenes at his modest home don’t have a lot of passion. For the most part, Cecil is truly bottled-up.  When we meet Gloria, they already have made a family. Perhaps if we had seen their initial romance, we could better understand their many ups and downs. Maybe this would’ve been better accomplished in a TV mini-series format that would allow screenwriter Danny Strong (HBO’s “Recount” and “Game Changer”,but forever Jonathan Levinson, Sunnydale High School class of 99) to give us a better insight into the family dynamic and also give us a bit of the Ford and Carter administrations. Unfortunately director Lee Daniels must rely on familiar news footage to convey the passage of time (that’s a long “Soul Train” clip!). And a few of the scenes with real folks are a bit clunky. Did Nixon really toss campaign buttons at the waiters? And a scene involving young Caroline Kennedy rings a tad false. What doesn’t ring false are the powerful scenes of hatred and bigotry. We witness the full horror in the cruel opening scenes in a cotton field and later as young Cecil stumbles upon a recent lynching. Later he must remain silent while listening to stinging comments from the more “sophisticated” classes. His son Lewis is the one who finds himself truly in the thick of it as he and other protesters must sit passively at a “whites only” lunch counter and endure the monstrous jeers and physical abuse from the town citizenry. Later we can almost taste the fear as the Freedom Riders bus is attacked and burned on a dark bridge. The image of those twisted faces screaming in fury at the bus windows is stunning and sickening. A subplot involving a fitful romance with another college student perhaps inspired by Angela Davis doesn’t really work as does a scene with an admonishing Martin Luther King, but it doesn’t make the earlier sequences any less riveting. When LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER works, it is a compelling reminder of the  unimaginable injustices that many Americans faced just a few short decades ago. Let’s hope it will be sent out to schools, because the film truly makes those brief passages in classroom history book come to life.

3.5 Out of 5