Primary Colors

This movie is an odd one in that it is a work of fiction, based on a book that is ostensibly a work of fiction, that everyone knows is based heavily on real people and real events around the time it was made.  As such, it is hard to discuss it without also discussing its real world counterparts.

The real events in question are Bill Clinton’s run through the democratic presidential primary of 1992.  The Stantons, stand ins for the Clintons, are perfect caricatures of their real life counterparts. Jack Stanton is a compassionate golden boy with a magnetic charisma, who is also a sexual predator.  In Primary Colors this is mostly shown as a rabid, and extra marital, sexual appetite, though one implied encounter with an under-aged girl plays the part of Clinton’s real life reputation for sexual harassment.  Susan Stanton is ambitious and unliked by the public, enraged by her husbands foibles but willing to put up with it for her own ambitions. In the movie, this is shown by her anger with Jack’s cheating being more focused on its implications for their polling numbers than the damage it does to their relationship, and by her total lack of hesitation when it comes to utilizing immoral tactics to win the election.

The thing that stood out to me the most was the tone of the film.  In particular, I couldn’t help but compare it to Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing.  While The West Wing was written from a place of nostalgic optimism for the Clinton years, Primary Colors is the polar opposite – an exercise in abject cynicism not just about Clinton but about politics in general.

I favor neither brutal satire nor wide eyed optimism when it comes to politically oriented fiction.  I am just as happy laughing at the absurd incompetence of the staffers on Veep as I am refueling my faith in the American system with Dave or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  However, in either case, I find I enjoy material that is more abstract and less pulled straight from the headlines.  When I can see the one for one parallels it isn’t as interesting or entertaining.  It leaves the realm of timeless parable on the role and responsibilities of governance and enters the realm of pointed criticism.  But in trading timelessness for timeliness, something is lost.  I’d much rather listen to Bob Dylan asking ‘how many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?’ in “Blowin in the Wind” than Eminem’s decidedly more direct ‘Fuck Bush’ in “Mosh.”

Primary Colors obviously represents the far extreme of the direct critique side of things.  What this movie embodies, which is one of the things I don’t like about such a roman à clef, is a blurring of the lines between the truth of a documentary and the fiction of fiction.  Primary Colors leaves you wondering what parts are real and what parts are invented for the purpose of telling a good story. Are we supposed to be shocked by the demystified realities of the politically opportunistic Clintons, via the behavior of their in-film proxies, or are we supposed to see them only as analogies for the larger thematic conflict between ideals and praxis that exists within the political sphere?  Can you do both without one detracting from the other?

The way the movie’s themes are presented is rather interesting.  In essence, the Stantons never change. We don’t watch them descend into darkness as they make well meaning, but ultimately Faustian, choices in the pursuit of a presidency where they think they can make a difference.  Instead, our understanding of the Stantons is what changes. The story is told from the perspective of Henry Burton, a senior member of the campaign staff, and we follow his disillusionment as he gains more access and sees more of who the Stantons really are.  This aspect of the film, in my opinion, is very well done. The idea that Burton represents near total idealism with very little interest in realpolitik at the beginning, and that that stance gets less firm the deeper in bed with the Stantons he gets, is a compelling one.  However, the execution of Burton’s evolving character isn’t handled nearly as well as the Stantons’ role in motivating that evolution.

The most important character to Burton’s story is Libby.  Despite being a private eye hired to shield Stanton from attacks and find dirt on others, Libby acts as the moral center of the film.  A grizzled operative in the Stanton camp even compares them to each other for both being idealists. Libby frequently speaks with, and for, Burton in a way that presumes they have the same moral compass.  They are both witness to the big turn, after which it is Libby who makes the argument that a true believer cannot continue to associate with the Stanton campaign. The problem is that, while Libby is being built up as a potential foil to Burton, Burton himself is disappearing into the role of passive protagonist in the second and third acts.  As a result, we don’t get much sense of how everything Burton is experiencing is weighing on him, other than looks of stunned silence or solemn thoughtfulness.

In the end, Burton makes a decision which answers the central thematic question of whether he will cling to the last semblance of his principles or give in to the notion that the political ends, a Democratic candidate that can win, justify the means, backing a compulsive liar and womanizer.  What it doesn’t do is justify why he decides what he decides. The movie’s cynical final turn wasn’t unexpected but it also didn’t feel earned. Sure, Stanton gives him an impassioned speech, which has some of the best acting in the movie by anyone not named Kathy Bates, but even in that moment we are led to believe Burton isn’t necessarily buying Stanton’s pleas.  There needed to be better groundwork laid for the idea that Burton’s passionate idealism was being chipped away. Perhaps it is an issue of agency. Like I mentioned before, Burton spends a good portion of the film as a passive protagonist, giving him little opportunity to demonstrate, through action, how his principles are becoming muddied by his time in the campaign.  There is one scene, where he is sent to handle a pregnant girl, but it isn’t enough. Plus, within the context of the movie, that errand isn’t even morally questionable if you take what the Stantons say at face value, which at the time Burton still does.

Is it a good movie?  Hard to say. It is an interesting movie.  I was engaged the whole way through, intrigued to see where the story was going with all the different potential reveals and scandals, as well as how the characters would react to them.  However, the more distance I got from it the more I found myself dwelling on its flaws.

Ultimately, I think Primary Colors suffers from being a film without an audience.  The book it was based on was a national bestseller but book readers and moviegoers are often very different demographics.  Also, in the intervening years of production, the narrative around the Clintons had changed, somewhat. The movie was released during Clinton’s second term and, sex scandals aside, the American people were enjoying years of prosperity, a federal budgetary surplus, and reforms to health care and social security.  In that political climate, such a scathing take down of a popular president struggled to find an audience. From the current day perspective, it doesn’t have anything to offer as a resurrected cult classic. As a piece about the Clintons it is, in many ways, less interesting than what is written about them in the actual news, and as a piece about the corrupt nature of politics it has been surpassed by shows like House of Cards and Veep.

Would Recommend: If you are interested in a harsher take on 90s politics.

Would Not Recommend: If you don’t like harsh takes on politics.