Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)

Films don’t get much more ambitious than Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and that happens to be both one of the film’s greatest assets as well as its worst enemy. Daniels has a history of pushing his material as far as it can possibly go, but that has resulted in far more debacles than successes. Prior to The Butler, the only project of his that made anything resembling a positive impact was Precious, and while The Butler doesn’t quite fix all of his problems it shows that his skill set can be quite effective when paired with a well-meaning script like this. This movie is ultimately just a sloppy collection of moments with nowhere to go, but that doesn’t keep Daniels from trying to turn it into the definitive story of American racism rather than just one story of American racism. It could never wholly succeed in that regard, but it’s fascinating to watch it try.

The eponymous butler is Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), who witnessed his father’s death as a boy on a cotton plantation and then went on to become a butler in a Washington, D.C. hotel. He marries Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) and has two children: Louis (David Oyelowo) and Charlie (Elijah Kelley). After several years of quality service, he is hired as a butler at the White House, and it is there he works through every administration starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower (Robin Williams) and ending with Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman). While Cecil serves silently for decades, Louis becomes a major civil rights figure who finds himself in the midst of the South as some of the most racial notorious conflicts were taking place.

The contrast between Louis' idealism and Cecil’s career is an interesting one, but the film handles much of it a bit too conveniently. As Louis plunges himself deeper and deeper into the civil rights movement, he and his father begin to resent each other and their relationship becomes strained to the point where they refuse to speak. That, to a degree, makes sense. How the film chooses to resolve that conflict is far too simple considering the amount of time that is devoted to it, and it speaks to many of the problems the film faces down the home stretch. Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong are able to create some memorable moments throughout, but there comes a time when the film suddenly realizes it doesn’t have a satisfying endgame in mind. The process of the film is fine enough, but for the final 20 minutes it feels more like Daniels is spinning his wheels than anything. There are a couple solid scenes that depict the racial progress that has been made in Gaines’ life, but the film could have handled them a whole lot more efficiently.

Problematic as Daniels can sometimes be, The Butler is further evidence that he can be a fine director of actors. Whatever you may think of Precious overall, it is absolutely a well-performed one, and the acting in this film is every bit as good if not better. Whitaker is the perfect presence as Cecil Gaines, and he perfectly captures that character’s special brand of deeply internal emotion. Oprah Winfrey’s return to acting also goes very well considering she's playing a rather challenging role. The only real missteps on the acting front come in the presidential department, as Daniels simply goes with a cavalcade of stunt casting that makes absolutely no sense. It says something about your movie when Robin Williams’ Dwight Eisenhower is probably the most believable presidential performance. Other than that it’s just a bunch of well-known names doing distracting impersonations. Daniels is trying to make a serious film about the darker side of 20^th century America, but he undercuts it whenever John Cusack shows up to do a Richard Nixon voice.

Even so, the sloppiness of the film almost adds to its charm. Daniels is passionate about every frame of The Butler, and while the film is long and problematic it’s almost never boring. In fact, it focuses so much on extremes that any attempts at subtlety are few and far between. Obviously there’s not much ambiguity as far as the morality of these events is concerned, and Daniels is wise to not hold back when depicting some of the more atrocious acts of violence in the South. His problems come when he has to try to form some connective tissue, and the stories of Cecil and Louis don’t always interconnect as much as the filmmaker might like. Daniels is so concerned with creating powerful moments that he has a tendency to ignore the whole, but on the flip side he gives The Butler far more life than a more conventional filmmaker might be able to pull off. The film is obvious, overstuffed and overreaching, but it’s also an impeccably performed drama that is able to dig up some powerful truths along the way.

Grade: B