Movies: The Butler

Score:  ****1/2 out of ***** (A)

Long Story Short:  This August's buzzy new drama was The Butler, a film praised by many and skewered by others who criticize its historical inaccuracies.  I am definitely one of the former, having loved this powerful, Forrest Gump-like story, inaccuracies be damned.  Forest (appropriate name) Whitaker gives a magnificent performance as the butler title character, and he's surrounded by a great supporting cast.  Ignore the naysayers; this is a film you need to see.


I wanted to get another film review in at the tail end of summer, and I did.  Good thing, because it will likely be the first and last of September, one of the worst months for film releases.  But that's OK:  it's the start of football season, both college and pro.  Next week, I will probably do a blog post about the summer of tennis (since the U.S. Open is finishing up this weekend).  As far as The Butler, I hadn't even heard of this film up to a few weeks before its release, let alone anticipated it.  It soon became one of the summer's most talked about dramas, however, so I looked into it.  With a good score on RT and some intriguing reviews, I decided to see it.  The Butler was directed by Lee Daniels (Precious) and stars Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey.

Telling his life story as an old man, Cecil (Whitaker) begins with a momentous event in his life as a young boy at a cotton plantation in the 1920s.  Following the tragedy that occurs, the elderly caretaker of the plantation takes Cecil in to train him as a house servant.  He becomes quite good at it but leaves the plantation, which holds such traumatic memories, as soon as he can.  Wandering poor and lost through the South, Cecil is taken in by a benevolent baker, and he uses his one learned skill, serving, to advance quickly to better positions.  Cecil meets Gloria (Winfrey) while working in Washington, D.C., and they marry and have two children.  What happens next transforms Cecil's life from unlikely to unbelievable:  he is hired to work in the White House.

From there, we are taken through Cecil's work at the White House and his life outside it, from 1957 to his retirement thirty years later, to his witness of the first African American elected President of the United States.  During these years, Cecil is forced to deal with the conflict between his own relatively comfortable middle-class life and the suffering and injustice experienced by fellow African Americans that he sees not only in the news at the White House but in his own family as well.

The Butler is blessed with a terrific cast, one that embraces the film's script that calls for both nuanced as well as exquisitely raw performances.  Forest Whitaker plays Cecil, the film's lead, and he knocks it out of the park.  Forest completely disappears into the role of a butler - a remarkable feat for even the best Hollywood actors.  His professional skill as a butler - his quiet, dignified respectfulness - informs the way he acts in his personal life.  Thus, the few outbursts he does have are that much more powerful.  An outstanding performance.  Oprah Winfrey, whom I have not seen in any other film role, also does a great job.  Her part is of course much smaller, but she plays Forest's/Cecil's wife so naturally that you would think they just cast a couple to play the pair.  Like Forest, Oprah keeps her character's emotions restrained for the most part, but as opposed to Cecil, who is passive by training, Gloria is a force to be reckoned with underneath the surface.

David Oyelowo plays Louis, Cecil and Gloria's son, the troublemaker of the family.  The part could easily have been overplayed by another eager young actor, but Oyelowo does a great job in varying and controlling his character's large range of emotions.  There are some other very nice supporting roles, from Louis' brother and girlfriend/civil rights partner, to Cecil's co-workers (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and neighbors (Terrence Howard).  But the last interesting bit of casting involves the Presidents.  Each has a small part but filled by big names:  Robin Williams, James Marsden, John Cusack, Alan Rickman, etc.  They each slide right into their roles and really work despite seeming to be odd choices.

Being a huge fan of Forrest Gump (top three all-time), I can't help but see this as kin to that film in not only structure but also style.  Of course, there is the trip through the second half of 20th century American history following a somewhat obscure yet remarkable individual.  Now, Cecil was a real person (actual name: Charles Allen), and I've heard that the film embellishes his life to put it mildly.  You can choose to see it as you wish, but I'm satisfied with the mere suggestion of the story being loosely based on his real life.  The other similarity is the style; by this I mean that both films are pretty direct about the historical aspects, but more nuanced (and equally if not more powerful) with their main characters' development.  Oh, and a third shared aspect I just remembered:  both feature soundtracks to match the historical era of the film as it progresses through history (Forrest Gump's being more effective, but The Butler's soundtrack is also very good).

***

It would be one thing if The Butler merely mimicked Forrest Gump in structure and style - and by the way, I have no idea of the director's or writer's intentions, so I'm not saying the similarity was purposeful.  But The Butler also has a tone all its own, and the quality is very high, particularly with the performances.  And the cultural message, conveyed at a personal level through Cecil, is powerful and quite complex despite being rather overt at times.  Should Cecil feel proud that he used the opportunities given to him to provide for himself and his family?  Should Cecil feel ashamed that he ignored other opportunities (albeit risky ones) to push for justice for those who started much like him but who ended up as victims?  Can/should he be proud and ashamed of his life?  Even with these serious themes, The Butler also has a great sense of humor, like Forrest Gump before it.  This is what movies are supposed to be, I think:  magical, only-in-a-movie, technically unrealistic events molded around the very realistic development of individual characters in ways that we can all sympathize with (even if the life paths that took us to those personal developments are much different).  I'll definitely be seeing this one again and may upgrade it to A+.  It's probably obvious by now, but I urge you to see this film, whether at the theater or at home.