Thank You For Smoking
In Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking, Aaron Eckhart takes a role that he was born to play and makes a film that I suspect will have to be seen twice for plain delight. That's because it takes a very long time to decide whether Nick Naylor, the crack tobacco lobbyist whose adventures in spin and media mismanagement bring him to the brink of catastrophe not once but twice, is a hero or a devil. Mr Eckhart is an extremely entertaining devil, but there can't be many people who, having just watched In The Company of Men, are seized by the desire to watch it again right away. When his character is scalped and killed in Nurse Betty, horror is trumped by relief: one less scumbag on earth. In Smoking, he is far too conscious of being appealing to be trusted. Will he turn out to be someone we love to hate? If so, the film's comic potential is greatly reduced. If, on the other hand, Nick is the roguish hero of a satire, then we can laugh more easily.
Nick Naylor is the roghish hero of a satire, and Mr Eckhart deserves an Academy Award not least for keeping us on edge about Nick until the film is nearly over. I could easily talk about nothing but one very sensational performance. There is not an iota of comic potential that does register in one way or another on Nick's face. And what a face! With its long, straight nose, its wide mouth, its cleft chin, its good-boy hair and its slightly out-of-synch eyes, Mr Eckhart's face at rest looks like a bland corporate, but the instant it moves it become plausible. It is a hall of mirrors, sometimes a funhouse, in which you're not sure that the wallet you're shielding is in your back pocket or somebody else's. Nick Naylor is radioactively suspect.
In all but one scene. After his second catastrophe, Nick falls, understandably, into a deep slump. From this he is rescued by a kitchen conversation with his son, Joey. Now, only in a satire could one go along with the notion that Mr Eckhart could produce a son resembling moon-faced Cameron Bright, but this mock-tender scene actually witnesses the actors' switching roles. Mr Bright is the wise daddy, Mr Eckhart, his pupils invisible, the open-mouthed kid. This is the moment when, agreeing with Joey, we decide that, even if he's a vulture, Nick Naylor is a very good vulture, in a world that for some reason requires vultures. We're moved not least because Mr Eckhart looks like the sort of fiend who would use Mr Cameron to play dwarf bowling.
Based on a novel by satirist Christopher Buckley, Thank You For Smoking begins with a devastating leer at the nation's lack of critical-thinking skills. On the Joan Lunden Show, Nick is the bad guy on a panel of anti-smoking campaigners, including "Cancer Boy," a rather robust-looking teenager with a shaved head. Within moments, Nick has the audience reconsidering the urge to boo him off the stage. We see the formerly skeptical faces begin to nod in agreement with his spin. Mr Reitman never lets the movie lose its satirical thrust, which perhaps explains why critics have found it "slight." Satire operates on the principle that laughter is the best first step toward reform. It is, quite literally, not meant to be taken "seriously." Satire often flops on the screen because, as Messrs Eckhart and Bright demonstrate by showing us what's required, it requires the ability to keep a straight face where winking might seem irresistible. Never have pans been deader to the urge.
Who but Mr Buckley would name a senator from Vermont "Ortolan Finistirre?" Who but William H Macy could have played such a tetchy prig? Who but Robert Duvall could have given us such a smooth but monstrous caricature of a tobacco baron? Katie Holmes, currently under a cloud because of suspicions about the nature of her marriage, is adorable right up to the moment when she's not - and beyond. Rob Lowe (an even more plausible actor than Mr Eckhart) impersonates an interplanetary Hollywood agent - or is he? Maria Bello and David Koechner are perfect as Nick's "Merchants of Death" buddies.
Thank You For Not Smoking is pitch-perfect and, I expect, huge fun. I'll have to wait until I've seen it a second time.
