politics – The Magnificent 60s

Streaming at its best. Take an obscure subject, a long-forgotten character, an incident that’s a mere blip in history, actors of less than middle rank in box office terms, and by breaking it down into easily consumable parts turn a history lesson that might be an indigestible three hours on the big screen into a riveting, enthralling drama of the highest quality that takes a no-holds-barred approach to politics

Small wonder you won’t have heard of U.S. President James Garfield (Michael Shannon) given he held office for around three months. Or of his misfit assassin Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), less than a footnote in history for making the grave mistake of gunning down a President nobody had ever heard of.

Garfield shouldn’t even have been President. A mid-level politician on the verge of retirement, he wasn’t even in the running for the Republican nomination, which should have gone to Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant. But in one of those quirks of politics, the voters liked what they heard of Garfield and in a grass roots rebellion shooed him in. He won the Presidential election by a whisker.

And then his troubles started. He was too honest for the job. Unwilling to follow the standard corruption and hand out highly-paid posts to rank-and-file unfitting for the job, he found himself up against the New York political powerhouse headed by Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham) who controlled the bulk of the revenue entering the country. And the battles with Conkling would have easily made a House of Cards-style series in itself as the dueling politicians attempt to outwit each other.

But in the background, and weaseling his way into the foreground, is con man, thief, forger, misfit Guiteau with as much entitlement as could sink a battleship who, nonetheless, grasps the key essential of politics of the era which is that helping to grease the greasy pole is all you need to reap the benefits. Except his efforts to become anyone’s righthand man fall way short, as his ambition and lack of any relevant skills are widely mocked – he expects to be handed an ambassadorial role although he speaks no foreign languages – despite occasionally finding an opening.

Having been dismissed by the President himself, he decides Garfield is totally the wrong person for the highest position in the land and takes it upon himself to rid the nation of this burden. Even the assassination is ham-fisted and Garfield would have survived except for the efforts of the ham-fisted surgeon who killed him through septic poisoning.

That’s the climax to a thoroughly involving mini-series where no punches are pulled as far as politics are concerned. Conkling doesn’t mind being the man behind the throne as long as he gets credit for pulling the strings. Political wheeling-and-dealing has never been so ruthlessly exposed.

But it’s not as if Garfield is an innocent in that department. While not stooping to corruption, he pulls the legs from under Conkling by appointing Conkling’s righthand man Chester Arthur (Nick Offerman) as his Vice-President, a scheme that while initially backfiring eventually pays dividends. And it’s ironic that Conkling’s demise is down to a thwarted mistress.

The narrative switches on like a thriller, twists and turns every inch of the way. But as much as the riveting narrative, the joy of this is in the performances. Matthew Macfadyen, double Emmy award-winner for Succession (2018-2023), is rightly going to be considered to have landed the plum role, a fellow so much of a misfit that in a “free love” community nobody wants to have sex with him. But it’s a close-run thing. Michael Shannon (A Different Man, 2024) is outstanding, and Shea Whigham (F1, 2025) has immense fun especially with his eyebrows and dominating curl, while Nick Offerman (Civil War, 2024) in shifting from oaf to man of honor has a peach of a role, not forgetting Betty Gilpin (The Hunt, 2020) as the straight-talking wife of the President.

None of these are stars, not even of the indie persuasion, and yet it’s amazing what they can do with their characters.

Directed with effortless style by Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic, 2016) from a script by Mike Makowsky (Bad Education, 2019) adapting the bestseller Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard.

Outstanding.

When F.B.I. agents turn up at your door with a search warrant, surely your first instinct is to ask what the hell is going on? When that doesn’t transpire, an audience’s gut feeling is that you are hiding something. Or, this being America, it’s going to be a miscarriage of justice.

Whether it is that in the end would depend on your political point of view.

Keeping politics out of it for the moment this is a riveting piece of what used to be called cinema verite and now probably is labelled docu-drama. The title would be ironic except that this main character had the kind of parents who named her Reality (Sydney Sweeney).

Initially, it’s just two rather amiable non-threatening FBI officers, Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Agent Taylor (Marchant Davis), who turn up in 2017 at the aforesaid door. They are advance warning, if you like, for soon there’s a posse of agents tumbling out of the cliché black vehicles. There’s certainly no sense of menace though Reality is kept clear of touching her mobile phone and kept outside and possibly thinking from the continued amiable chat with Garrick that it’s all going to be a misunderstanding. But then, as luck would have it, she’s got a room in her house that could stand in for a jail cell any day of the week, no furniture, bleak, and a snail plodding along the window ledge. And it’s in this room that the interrogation takes place.

What’s superb I guess is that the dialog all comes from F.B.I. transcripts so instead of the waterboarding or good-guy-bad-guy routine or just beating up a suspect that we’ve been fed as the truth by umpteen Hollywood movies the actual interrogation is so low-key you think this has got to be a case of mistaken identity. Or that someone out of malice has pointed the finger at an innocent party.

Reality is a linguist – speaks fluent Farsi (an Iranian language) – with high-level clearance working for the National Security Agency. Oh, and she teaches yoga, competes in weightlifting competitions and if I got this right owns three guns including an automatic rifle.

So, the questioning is pretty much along the lines of the F.B.I. just wanting to clear up a few things. Did she, for example, by accident ever take out of the building something classified that should never have left the office? Sure enough, way back, by accident she had done so. But it soon becomes clear, if ironic, that someone engaged effectively in espionage is just as open to being spied upon as the country’s adversaries.

But as the tension mounts, the tone never changes. It’s Reality who looks more and more under pressure. From standing stock still and meeting their eyes, her attention is diverted by the antics of the snail and she starts moving around and eventually slides to the floor. Occasionally, Taylor will take a turn asking questions and both are equally adept at expressing surprise, especially convincing given it’s soon evident they know her every move.

These guys could be classic courtroom lawyers, because they make no wild assertions, just gently lead her on to admitting what they know is true. They make a point of telling her they don’t think she’s a big badass spy, and that she’s just someone who made a mistake, maybe in the heat of the moment, what with so much going in the U.S. Presidential Elections of 2016.

And you’d be amazed at how the guilty party commits herself on the slightest of details, a piece of paper folded over, for example. Turns out Reality has been a whistle-blower and getting her to admit makes the consequences easier, especially when all her answers have been recorded, for the prosecution.

It’s quite obvious where debut director Tina Satter’s political views lie but that doesn’t get in the way of a stunning piece of cinema. She’s had the sense to keep it short – it barely passes the 80-minute mark – and to limit editorial outrage to the end.

As it stands, setting aside the political element, it’s an engrossing watch. Sydney Sweeney, a name I’m unfamiliar with, is superb as the guilty party while Garrick and Taylor are equally good at tying her up in knots.

One to watch, regardless of which end of the political divide you favor. This is the kind of movie that a Sidney Lumet – it reminded me both of the dryness of The Offence (1973) and the courtroom spectacle of The Verdict (1982) – or a John Frankenheimer would have pumped out in their prime or the fly-on-the-wall documentaries of Frederick Wiseman (Basic Training, 1971).

A must-see.

* They’re releasing this in the UK and possibly the rest of the world in the cinema, but in the U.S. it’s appearing as an HBO Original so I’m not sure if that means it’s gone straight to streaming or doing the indie rounds first.

Category: politics

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