The Front Runner (2018)

Director Jason Reitman's new movie The Front Runner is adapted from political journalist Matt Bai's 2014 book All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid. While it would be difficult to say precisely when American journalism "went tabloid" the week of May 3rd 1987 is as good a date as any and better then most. That was the week that the Miami Herald published a story that the then democratic front runner for president, former Colorado senator Gary Hart was having an extra material affair. The vary next day the name of the alleged mistress (to this day both parities contend that there was no affair) was then 29 year old pharmaceutical rep, model and sometimes actress (screen credits include episodes of Miami Vice and One Life to Live) Donna Rice. In short order Hart's campaign folded and he dropped out of the race.

There are a lot of interesting ideas and issues raised by this story worth exploring, however Reitman's film never feels much beyond surficial in its treatment. I don't feel like I learned much of anything new from this movie, or that it prompted any thoughts I hadn't had before, save maybe one. A point is made in the film that initial poll results after the scandal broke indicated that around 60% of Americans didn't think a politicians extra material escapades had any real bearing on their fitness for office. This seems a fairly consistent number, a majority of Americans don't seem to care much about presidential level adultery, and that has held for both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, an odd bipartisan consensus.

A reasonably educated understanding of history will bear out that presidential infidelity seems to have little effect on job performance. Mostly forgotten presidents like Warren Harding and James Garfield were known adulterers, while Franklin Roosevelt was essentially a practicing polygamist while successfully prosecuting the second world war. The positives and negatives of any given president aside, I don't know quite what to make of American tolerance of executive level fornication, when you hold that next to this nations famed puritanical streak. While The Front Runner lionizes Hart too much, he did seem to have the makings of a potentially very talented president, that road not taken is intriguing to think about. While Hugh Jackman gives a fine performance in the lead, too much of this film felt procedural, ritualistic, in form spot on, but in substance, shallow, lacking in insight and so arguably in purpose. The same might be said for the whole Hart affair. **1/2