Marshall (2017): written by Michael Koskoff and Jacob Koskoff; directed by Reginald Hudlin; starring Chadwick Boseman (Thurgood Marshall), Josh Gad (Sam Friedman), Kate Hudson (Eleanor Strubing), and Sterling K. Brown (Joseph Spell): Marshall plays a bit fast and loose with history in its tale of then-NAACP lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's participation in a rape trial in Connecticut in 1940. The major alteration come with re-imagining veteran Civil Rights lawyer Sam Friedman as a young, inexperienced Josh Gad.
Of course, this is a bit of a 'sauce for the goose' situation. The movie diminishes the contributions and experience of a white character (albeit Jewish and thus also familiar with bigotry) so as to foreground the competence and accomplishments of an African-American character. The movie does hew fairly closely to the facts of the case, so kudos for that.
Chadwick Boseman is riveting as Thurgood Marshall. The NAACP would send Marshall to consult on cases involving Civil Rights matters across America. How this hasn't been the basis for a TV show, I have no idea. Boseman has now played real-life characters Ernie Davis, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and Jackie Robinson. And he's the Black Panther!
Josh Gad is fine in a somewhat simplistic sidekick role. Equalizing the power relationship between Friedman and Marshall might have made for a quieter, better movie. But it's amazing that this film got made at all. And seemingly with the help of a lot of Chinese investors. What is up with that? Reginald Hudlin, whom I still associate with House Party, navigates a period-specific drama with grace and aplomb.
The movie navigates the very, very hazardous territory of a false rape accusation with care and finesse. The reason for such a rarity of a false accusation are made perfectly clear, and the film foregrounds the sympathetic reasons that Kate Hudson's lonely socialite would have done such a thing. Sterling K. Brown is solid as the accused, a chauffeur with a checkered past (but not a rapey past). In all, recommended.
The Intern (2015): written and directed by Nancy Meyers; starring Robert De Niro (Ben) and Anne Hathaway (Jules): A mostly enjoyable piece of fluff set in the alternate, upper-middle-class universe of Nancy (Father of the Bride, It's Complicated) Meyers, who's basically Nora-Ephron-Lite.
Robert De Niro plays a retired 70-year-old businessman who takes an unpaid internship for seniors at Anne Hathaway's Internet clothing business and soon teaches everyone how to live, love, and tie a tie. Probably the most startling thing in the movie (other than two more of modern Hollywood's drinking scenes written by people who have apparently never had a drink) is the uncanny resemblance the actor playing Hathaway's stay-at-home husband has to writer Chuck Klosterman. Lightly recommended.
All the Way (2016): adapted by Robert Schenkkan from his own play; directed by Jay Roach; starring Bryan Cranston (LBJ), Anthony Mackie (MLK), Melissa Leo (Lady Bird Johnson), Bradley Whitford (Hubert Humphrey), Frank Langella (Senator Russell), and Stephen Root (Hoover): Tony award winner for best play and best actor (Cranston) gets adapted for HBO. It's a dandy drama detailing President Lyndon Baines Johnson's attempts to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed while also winning the presidential election later that year.
Cranston is superb portraying the canny, volatile, profane Johnson. Supprting turns from Melissa Leo and Anthony Mackie are also superb, as is Frank Langella's nuanced, wounded portrayal of Dixiecrat Senator Russell. Bradley Whitford is excellent and almost unrecognizable as Hubert Humphrey. The narrative becomes a bracing examination of the seemingly lost Art of political compromise, as LBJ must work Republicans, Democrats, and the leaders of the Civil Rights movement to achieve something compromised by lasting. Highly recommended.
