Scandal File: Primarily Mush

IF synergy is the key to marketing, what better time to release Primary Colors—the movie based on the book based on the life and downtimes of Bill Clinton in early 1992—than during the scandals of early 1998? Bill Clinton survived the bimbo eruptions then; can a movie about them be a guide to the perplexed now? Its makers think so, for they are plugging their handiwork as a purgative for American naivete. “Historically,” says Joe Klein, the book’s author, “having an interesting sex life is a leading indicator of success in the Presidency.” Director Mike Nichols goes further: “The very gift that makes … a great leader is the same thing that keeps him jumping on a lot of women.”

Don’t bother to look for counterexamples, for the movie’s oblique relationship to the headlines is the least interesting thing about it. Compared to the Monica/Kathleen/Paula madhouse that Washington and the media have been living in for two months, the sexual goings-on of Jack Stanton, the film’s Clinton character, seem almost sedate, and are in any case only one element of the plot. At the New York screening I attended, some of the sex jokes elicited longer laughs than they normally would have, but there was none of the sickmaking frisson that Wag the Dog stimulated in late January. The grossest onscreen act is committed by the James Carville character (Richard Jemmons, played by Billy Bob Thornton) who exposes himself to a campaign co-worker. But she comes back with a snappy putdown, and turns out to be a lesbian anyway, so that’s cool. If only Paula Jones had thought of that. The two things that stand out about the movie are the acting, and the philosophy. How does the big screen depict the people we see on the little screen every night? Interestingly. How well does it understand politics? Not well at all—but who does? Just as Dr. Johnson declined to settle the precedence between a flea and a louse, so it is unnecessary to compare each performer to some real-life minor Clintonite. Billy Bob Thornton manages to make James Carville appealing by reversing his energy. Carville is manic, like an eruption of roaches from a baseboard. Thornton is depressed; if he did not have a Southern accent, you would think he had walked in from a Woody Allen movie. Emma Thompson as Susan Stanton adds nothing to our understanding of the First Lady. But John Travolta’s Jack Stanton/Bill Clinton is a richly amusing star turn. He gets a dozen details right—the pursed lip when cornered; the raspy voice when tired or “sincere”; the heavy but easy physicality. Travolta looks less gross than Clinton: his nose is long and straight, not the bulbous tuber that has swollen so alarmingly in cartoons over the last few weeks. Travolta also misses Clinton’s wonkish, know-it-all side (a weakness which reflects the film’s deep failure—see below). Travolta has said he acted “with a valentine in my heart.” Yet his acting gives Jack Stanton his most sinister moment. In a speech at the movie’s end, when Stanton is trying to persuade a disaffected aide to stick with him, he explains that all politicians have to do dirty deeds to achieve the power that enables them to do good. The aide buys it. But Travolta’s eyes, which look straight into the aide’s and, over his shoulder, into ours, are a study in phoniness. Don’t sell a used soul to this man.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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IF synergy is the key to marketing, what better time to release Primary Colors—the movie based on the book based on the life and downtimes of Bill Clinton in early 1992—than during the scandals of early 1998? Bill Clinton survived the bimbo eruptions then; can a movie about them be a guide to the perplexed now? Its makers think so, for they are plugging their handiwork as a purgative for American naivete. “Historically,” says Joe Klein, the book’s author, “having an interesting sex life is a leading indicator of success in the Presidency.” Director Mike Nichols goes further: “The very gift that makes … a great leader is the same thing that keeps him jumping on a lot of women.”

Don’t bother to look for counterexamples, for the movie’s oblique relationship to the headlines is the least interesting thing about it. Compared to the Monica/Kathleen/Paula madhouse that Washington and the media have been living in for two months, the sexual goings-on of Jack Stanton, the film’s Clinton character, seem almost sedate, and are in any case only one element of the plot. At the New York screening I attended, some of the sex jokes elicited longer laughs than they normally would have, but there was none of the sickmaking frisson that Wag the Dog stimulated in late January. The grossest onscreen act is committed by the James Carville character (Richard Jemmons, played by Billy Bob Thornton) who exposes himself to a campaign co-worker. But she comes back with a snappy putdown, and turns out to be a lesbian anyway, so that’s cool. If only Paula Jones had thought of that. The two things that stand out about the movie are the acting, and the philosophy. How does the big screen depict the people we see on the little screen every night? Interestingly. How well does it understand politics? Not well at all—but who does? Just as Dr. Johnson declined to settle the precedence between a flea and a louse, so it is unnecessary to compare each performer to some real-life minor Clintonite. Billy Bob Thornton manages to make James Carville appealing by reversing his energy. Carville is manic, like an eruption of roaches from a baseboard. Thornton is depressed; if he did not have a Southern accent, you would think he had walked in from a Woody Allen movie. Emma Thompson as Susan Stanton adds nothing to our understanding of the First Lady. But John Travolta’s Jack Stanton/Bill Clinton is a richly amusing star turn. He gets a dozen details right—the pursed lip when cornered; the raspy voice when tired or “sincere”; the heavy but easy physicality. Travolta looks less gross than Clinton: his nose is long and straight, not the bulbous tuber that has swollen so alarmingly in cartoons over the last few weeks. Travolta also misses Clinton’s wonkish, know-it-all side (a weakness which reflects the film’s deep failure—see below). Travolta has said he acted “with a valentine in my heart.” Yet his acting gives Jack Stanton his most sinister moment. In a speech at the movie’s end, when Stanton is trying to persuade a disaffected aide to stick with him, he explains that all politicians have to do dirty deeds to achieve the power that enables them to do good. The aide buys it. But Travolta’s eyes, which look straight into the aide’s and, over his shoulder, into ours, are a study in phoniness. Don’t sell a used soul to this man.