Lee Daniels is not the kind of director one associates with stuffy, Oscar-bait, historical films, but he succeeds with "The Butler" by keeping audiences entertained and engrossed, balancing both humor and drama to tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement.
The film tells the story of Cecil Gaines, played by Forest Whitaker, based on the life of real-life White House butler Eugene Allen. He served as a butler in the White House for seven presidents and witnessed the Civil Rights Movement. After experiencing his father's death and his mother's rape at the hands of the slaveowner (Alex Pettyfer, "I Am Number Four"), Cecil becomes a house servant. From there, he becomes a hotel butler and eventually ends up in the White House.
The film explores the people in Cecil's periphery: his alcoholic but supportive wife (Oprah Winfrey, "The Color Purple") and his son Louis (David Oyelowo, "Jack Reacher"), his co- workers, including Carter (Cuba Gooding, Jr., "Red Tails") and James (Lenny Kravitz, "The Hunger Games") as they all experience the tumultuous events surrounding the Civil Rights Movement.
The most interesting part is the portrayal of the dichotomy between two ways of effecting change. Through Cecil, the film finds its avatar for effecting change within the limits imposed by society. Cecil becomes the most trusted butler in the White House and has been on occasion, the person who the presidents filter their thoughts through. On the other hand, the film seems to be advocating for effecting change forcefully, whether through Martin Luther King's peaceful method or Malcolm X's violence. Perhaps it's a surprise, given the momentum and direction of the story, that Daniels comes out in favor of forceful change.
The film's strengths are also its weakness. The screenwriter, Danny Strong, has made easily digestible political scripts before (Game Change, Recount) and here, he manages to cover the long timespan with ease. However, there are plenty of arch contrivances in the film's structure and the dialogue becomes too corny at times.
Meanwhile, the actors keep the whole film afloat with their passionate performances. Whitaker especially delivers a great performance as Cecil because by virtue of his trade, a butler has to be silent and invisible. However, Whitaker imbues anguish, and dignity in him. In one scene, Cecil speaks up to the head usher about raising their income, but faced with racist attitudes, Whitaker exquisitely charts the deflation of Cecil's pride.
Winfrey makes the audience forget her real-life persona, in favor of Cecil's lonely wife, who often gets ignored by his busy duties. Also worth mentioning is Oyelowo, who goes through Louis's various shades of bravery, bitterness, and later humility with remarkable depth. Especially remarkable is how tender his voice gets when he says "Hey Dad."
While there are plenty of good performances in this vast ensemble, sometimes they also hamper the story. While some choices are inspired (ultra-liberal Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan), others are baffling and even unintentionally funny. Witness the chuckles that the audience erupts in when Robin Williams walks in as President Eisenhower or Liev Schreiber's broad take on President Johnson.
Daniels also still has a problem with his heavy-handed approach--his musical choices tells the audience just when to cry--but sometimes, it works beautifully. In one scene, he juxtaposes the White House butlers preparing for a fancy dinner with a scene where Louis and group of students are harassed during a sit-in at a restaurant in the South.
Despite the film's sentimentality, Daniels succeeds in injecting enough humor and drama that the film never becomes uninteresting or unentertaining.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
