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.
