The Butler (2013)

                Any medium of expression may be used to provide a venue for catharsis of the collective imagination. Our nation's history, although proud, is also riddled with fading memories of extreme violence and segregation, making it of the utmost importance that these topics are engaged in the mainstream media today so that the necessary discussions are neither lost nor forgotten. Lee Daniel's The Butler takes on the momentous task of grappling with recent black history through the eyes of Cecil Gaines, a man who serves on the White House Staff through many a presidency, and his son Louise, who joins various black empowerment movements against the counsel of his father.

The film accomplishes a number of things worth lauding, but ultimately comes up a little short. The positive aspects can be seen in the acting of this ensemble cast, the reflection of the themes in the editing, and the honest brutality with which it addresses its content. With Oprah reemerging into film, and names like Forest Whitaker, Terrence Howard, Vanessa Redgrave, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Lenny Kravitz, Robin Williams, Alan Rickman, and Jane Fonda,  the viewer expects skillful performances, and they are delivered. Whitaker gives us Cecil with a strength and subtlety that makes him incredibly accessible to the audience, which is precisely what he needs to be. The film rides on our understanding how fragile his circumstances are: he serves his country faithfully, but his country does not serve him. This is echoed visually through crosscutting throughout the film, as the imagery frequently juxtaposes Cecil and his son. In one instance, Cecil sets the table for a White House reception, while his son is abused at a diner for refusing to sit in the section designated for blacks.  This cruelty, particularly when interlaced with the refinement of life in the White House, is quite striking, as is much of the imagery throughout the film of the violence that was instigated against the African American community. Daniels has shown in both this film and his 2009 film, Precious, that he is willing to push the limits of his audience to provoke real emotions in them.

Yet, the film was also not without its shortcomings. For one, it suffers from the classic issues faced by all bio pics. The screenplay was, overall, not exceptional. Relaying just the necessary details, it merely results in predictability and falls quickly into an easily identifiable narrative pattern. In addition, the way the movie depicted the presidencies seemed rather gimmicky. Feeling akin to  Forrest Gump, the presidents are only there to place time period, in essence becoming somewhat superfluous to the actual plot. Which in turn makes the film feel unnecessarily long.

Overall: I applaud the film for attempting to engage an important topic through extraordinary circumstances. However, the writing just did not match the magnitude of the film itself, and the shots  were formulaic to the bio pic genre. This is a film that needed to be made but was not groundbreaking in its approach. This story deserves to transcend into historical importance but this film may not have been the vehicle for it.