Jessica Chastain further cements her status as one of the
best actresses working today with “Miss Sloane,” the engrossing new political
thriller from “Shakespeare in Love” director John Madden.
Chastain stars as Elizabeth Sloane — a brilliant but
ethically unscrupulous Capitol Hill lobbyist — who as the film opens is being
grilled at a Senate hearing called in order to uncover whether or not her
ruthless methods have crossed the line of legality. From there, the
swiftly-plotted script (from first-timer Jonathan Perera)
flashes back several months to track the events that lead to her landing in hot
water, starting when the prestigious firm that employs her agrees to work on
behalf of the gun lobby.
When her boss (Sam Waterston) orders her to head up the
campaign to put the kibosh on a bill that would require universal background
checks, Elizabeth promptly jumps ship and immediately gets herself hired by the
much smaller firm that happens to be working to pass that very same bill. This
seemingly principled stand is rather out of character for a cutthroat
opportunist like herself, and her true motives remain one of the central
mysteries of the film.
Elizabeth’s shady approach to lobbying creates some friction
with her more ethically-minded new employer Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), and
when her new team of underlings show some wariness in climbing aboard the
Elizabeth Sloane train, she knows exactly how to bulldoze them into seeing
things her way. Knowing she’ll need someone to back her up, she identifies the
most talented junior lobbyist, Esme (the excellent Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and takes her on as a protรฉgรฉ.
The decision to shift allegiances naturally makes Elizabeth a
number of enemies, not least of which are her old employers, who’ll stop at
nothing to get their way. And if them winning means they get to destroy her
career in the process, all the better.
Elizabeth has no compunction about using people as stepping
stones toward getting what she wants. She’s a person for whom every
relationship is transactionary, every action is a
means to an end, and manipulation is just part of the job. Dedicated to her
career, she substitutes a personal life for occasional liaisons with a charming
escort (Jake Lacy, good as the hooker with the heart of gold), and keeps
emotions strictly out of the equation.
Chastain is fantastic ash she sinks her teeth into this
juicy, complicated character, although the film around her doesn’t always live
up to her performance. Too many of the surrounding characters feel
two-dimensional, and there’s not a lot of ambiguity in Perera’s
portrayal of the other side. Waterston practically foams at the mouth, while
Michael Stuhlbarg is stuck playing the weasely character he’s increasingly asked to play these
days (see: “Doctor Strange” and “Arrival”).
The plot gets increasingly farfetched as it goes on,
especially during some preposterous developments in the third act, but seeing
the mechanics of lobbying is fascinating stuff. Particularly enjoyable are
throwaway moments like Elizabeth detailing her foolproof method to discredit an
opponent: simply hire actors to wave around signs with some bat-shit crazy
slogans behind them during an interview, and make them look like lunatics by
association. The film is at its best when it’s delving into these enjoyable
little details.
As political soap opera, “Miss Sloane” is sleek and
entertaining, even if its ultimate adherence to the idea that truth will win
out and deception has its consequences seems more and more like a fantasy.
This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2016.
