I recently saw Primary Colors on television for the first time since I saw it in the theatre. I had nearly forgotten about this movie for some reason, although there's enough memorable about it to tell a friend about it.
The story of a Southern governor's rise from obscure democratic primary candidate to president of the United States is shown in this amalgam of a movie. I'm still not quite sure how to classify it. It has too many heavy moments to be a pure comedy. It's too silly and light-hearted at moments to be a straight drama. It's not insulting enough to be a satire, and it's not self-promoting enough to be a propaganda piece.
It encorporates many elements, yet it somehow all flows brilliantly together. All the actors give above-average performances, especially Kathy Bates, the over-the-top, aging, lesbian, hippie cowgirl who digs the dirt for her friend Jack Stanton. Bates steals every scene she's in, and brings us the highest and lowest points of the movie, emotionally.
One thing I will say is this movie is best if you don't think about it too hard. If you go into the movie, thinking, "I heard this was based on Clinton," then you're going to be confused and disappointed. There are parallels between Stanton and Clinton, from the voice and appearance, to their Southern governor origins, to sex allogations, but it's not a biographical piece in the slightest. It's a story all its own, and this movie and the book it's based on deserve to be treated as such. Both sides of the political spectrum get jabbed at in this movie, so don't worry about political spin. Just watch it for being a movie.
It's not perfect. The movie does drag a bit at times, and it's not too subtle in the script. The story does take interesting turns, but it's all very straight-forward, and there's not much to interpret. The ending is too abrupt. It skips from one scene to far into the future and just ends. Then you sit back and think, "Well, I guess that was a sensible place to end it now that I think about it." The problem is that one's not quite sure where the climax is and when the movie reached the final resolution.
Overall, it's definitely worth watching at least once, and perhaps more than once.
The story of a Southern governor's rise from obscure democratic primary candidate to president of the United States is shown in this amalgam of a movie. I'm still not quite sure how to classify it. It has too many heavy moments to be a pure comedy. It's too silly and light-hearted at moments to be a straight drama. It's not insulting enough to be a satire, and it's not self-promoting enough to be a propaganda piece.
It encorporates many elements, yet it somehow all flows brilliantly together. All the actors give above-average performances, especially Kathy Bates, the over-the-top, aging, lesbian, hippie cowgirl who digs the dirt for her friend Jack Stanton. Bates steals every scene she's in, and brings us the highest and lowest points of the movie, emotionally.
One thing I will say is this movie is best if you don't think about it too hard. If you go into the movie, thinking, "I heard this was based on Clinton," then you're going to be confused and disappointed. There are parallels between Stanton and Clinton, from the voice and appearance, to their Southern governor origins, to sex allogations, but it's not a biographical piece in the slightest. It's a story all its own, and this movie and the book it's based on deserve to be treated as such. Both sides of the political spectrum get jabbed at in this movie, so don't worry about political spin. Just watch it for being a movie.
It's not perfect. The movie does drag a bit at times, and it's not too subtle in the script. The story does take interesting turns, but it's all very straight-forward, and there's not much to interpret. The ending is too abrupt. It skips from one scene to far into the future and just ends. Then you sit back and think, "Well, I guess that was a sensible place to end it now that I think about it." The problem is that one's not quite sure where the climax is and when the movie reached the final resolution.
Overall, it's definitely worth watching at least once, and perhaps more than once.