With both cast and content, Lee Daniels' "The Butler" demonstrates the importance of the "small role"

Last night, Larry and I went to see Lee Daniels’ new film, The Butler at Fort Lauderdale’s Gateway Theater. The Gateway, a vintage theater established in 1951 whose lobby features classic film stills from Hollywood’s “Golden Era,” seemed the perfect venue at which to see a star-studded film with historic subject matter. Having been moved by Daniels’ Precious in a small movie house in Claremont CA during its run in 2009, having listened to good reviews about the film from elder family members who lived through the eras it depicts, and knowing that the film featured Colman Domingo, an actor whom I greatly admire, my expectations of the film were quite high. (I’ve been a fan of Domingo’s work since 2004, when I was fortunate to see him perform in three Bay Area productions within the space of about a year: a workshop production of his rousing and heartfelt one-man show A Boy and His Soul at Thick Description, his admirable ensemble performance in the documentary play The People’s Temple at Berkeley Rep, as well as a fabulously supple, precise, dynamic performance as harlequin-clad Lavatche at CalShakes’ 2004 production of All’s Well that Ends Well. Domingo’s brilliance building the scene-stealing foppish clown with every subtly responsive vocal inflection, vivid yet pliable facial expression, and spontaneous physical gesture that harmonized specificity of the joints with lithe intentional muscularity remains one of my absolute favorite Shakespearean performances to date. In fact, I still share anecdotes about Domingo’s simultaneous illuminative character creation and generous ensemble playing in these stage moments when I teach Introductory Acting, because to me they serve as the perfect example of how an actor can electrify the stage even in a small role. At any rate, back to my review of The Butler…)

Loosely and liberally based on the life of Eugene Allen, The Butler relays the story of Cecil Gaines, who served as member of the White House staff for more than three decades. Set first in 1929, the film opens with a potently violent scene from Gaines’ childhood, during which time he worked as a farmhand on a Macon Georgia cotton plantation. Initially shocking the viewer with the off-screen rape of Gaines’ mother (Mariah Carey) and murder of Gaines’ father (David Banner) by a brutally nonchalant white landowner (Alex Pettyfer), the film uses Gaines’ life story as a vehicle by which to chronicle the progression of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the latter half of the 20^th Century. Although the violent events depicted in this first scene were fabricated for dramatic effect, including them at the film’s start effectively sets the tone of the era, during which black Americans endured not only legally-condoned discrimination and oppression, but frequent actual violence at the hands of both private citizens and white public law enforcers who nearly always went unpunished. Muscle-bound Banner’s palpable love for his son and vulnerability throughout contrasted sharply with the coldblooded exactness brought by British actor Pettyfer, whose character, set off by a mere questioning gesture after the rape, kills Gaines’ father with an apathetic pistol shot to the forehead without reservation or remorse.

Although Carey played her nonverbal role well, her turn here may have undermined the believability of the scene somewhat for me, as her appearance injected an unfortunate campiness to what might otherwise have been an extremely powerful cinematic moment. (Pardon me, but I couldn’t help but overlay the unfortunate image of Mariah in a glittery gold dress on the cover of The Emancipation of Mimi, and more recent memories of her effusive commentary on American Idol, onto the inhumane cotton field.) Though Carey’s acting was fine, had a lesser known actress been cast, the scene may have sustained more integrity. That said, Vanessa Redgrave’s entrance as the murderer’s aged landowning mother (at which she coldly instructs the other farmhands to quickly dig a hole big enough to bury Gaines’ strapping father, then quickly takes the boy under her wing as a “house nigger”) helped mollify the jarring quality of Carey’s celebrity presence, somewhat. In the following scenes, Redgrave instructs the 8-year-old Gaines (played artfully by young actor Michael Rainey Jr., who holds his own admirably next to Redgrave) in the finer arts of serving as a butler, cook, and waiter. To paraphrase, “Do not react, do not listen, never speak unless asked a direct question. When you are serving, the room must feel empty. You must be invisible,” she tells him, echoing the theme of Ralph Ellison’s infamous novel.

The film then jumps to 15-year-old Cecil (played well by Aml Ameen) deciding to leave the plantation several years later, and set out on his own. A quick succession of scenes depict a road-weary Cecil taking shelter in an underground sewer pipe during a rainstorm, smashing through a window with his fists to quell his constant hunger with the sugary confections on display, and subsequent mentoring by an older stately servant (played with depth and humor by Clarence Williams III), who hires him to serve in the house after the break-in. The story then jumps to the early 1950s, during Eisenhower’s administration. The perennially superb Forest Whitaker takes over the role of Cecil, who, after securing a position at one of the top luxury hotels in D.C., is unknowingly observed and recruited by a White House staff manager to work as a butler. Whitaker’s dense yet smooth charisma and benevolent gravitas deftly carry much of the rest of the film. That said, numerous other actors contributed to the film’s success, including Domingo, with the clarity and sharp wit he brings to the role of the sophisticated and jaded head butler, and Cuba Gooding Jr., who plays Cecil’s buoyantly sunny and slightly salacious coworker. (In one particularly fun scene, Gooding shows the other butlers – including one played by laudably understated Lenny Kravitz, whom I barely recognized – how to turn the bread dough they are kneading into the shape of a woman’s breast.)

Much of the remainder of the film is built from a succession of scenes in which Cecil is able to speak candidly with the various Presidents he knew intimately in his 34 years of service. The film implies that he may have subtly influenced their policy decisions regarding race relations. [For example, in one scene, Eisenhower (Robin Williams), painting an impressionistic landscape in the Oval Office, listens attentively after asking the ever-patient Cecil about his children’s schooling. In the next scene, he orders the National Guard to Arkansas to help facilitate desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education.]

Particularly strong in the film were the two actors who play Cecil’s sons Louis and Charlie (played by David Oyelowo and Elijah Kelley, respectively.) The believability they brought to the film (especially in terms of their success conveying the simultaneous jealously, love, and playfulness that is a hallmark of many brotherly relationships) helped offset the vagueness of the scenes with Cecil’s wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey.)

Unfortunately, I was never fully convinced that I understood Gloria’s character or her motivations, and, sad to say, I’m not sure Winfrey did either. This was partly due to the writing, which perhaps in trying to give her character depth, instead resulted in a confusing personification. [For example, in one moment, Gloria drunkenly reapplies lipstick incessantly while gazing at herself in the mirror, jealous that Cecil spends so much time waiting on Jackie Kennedy. “How many pairs of shoes does she have?” Gloria demands in a voice that is only mildly different from Winfrey’s own. In a quest to make her more “humanly rounded” and perhaps give her role more importance (in one scene Gloria fends off the advances of the strapping yet unctuous neighbor with whom she is having an affair, in the next, she is the loyal sober wife, in the next, she chastises her husband for his lack of compassion when dealing with their activist son, etc.) what emerged instead was a disjointed characterization that distracted from the main dramatic storyline, which for me, was the relationship between Cecil and his son Louis. The schizophrenia of Gloria’s character, in conjunction with the claustrophobic repetition of close-ups of Winfrey and other actors in various group scenes at Cecil’s home, took away from the truth that could have emerged had the director focused instead on building the relationships with ensemble scenes with a broader camera span.]

At any rate, though it was fun waiting for and watching the various celebrity cameos in the roles of the Presidents and their wives (despite the obvious irony of the Vietnam antiwar activist playing the “Just Say No” First Lady, an icy Jane Fonda wearing Coco Channel was particularly good as Nancy Reagan, whereas likeable John Cusack, despite his herculean efforts, never quite pulled off the smarmy intelligence of Richard Nixon. Similarly, James Marsden’s JFK was too lightweight, naïve, and Eagle-Scoutish, and Alan Rickman’s deep voice and pensiveness obscured Reagan’s undeniable mannequin-like puppety qualities. Robin Williams brief appearance as Eisenhower, however, was more delicate than one might expect), overall the film suffered a bit from the presence of so many stars. They seemed to take away from the father-son storyline, which was most important to the overall message of the film.

Most effective for me were the expertly-edited split scenes of the nonviolence training leading up to the lunch counter protests (at which Cecil’s son Louis participated) paired with scenes of the phalanx of tuxedo-clad White House butlers serving tea with snow white napkins and polished silver service. The back-and-forth motion of this imagery blew me away emotionally, but also, presented the notion of “service” – vis-à-vis the volatility of historical U.S. race relations, and the progression to justice – as an interesting and worthwhile concept about which to rethink. Less than a year after Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful presidential run, questions like: “Who exactly are ‘the takers’? And who gives service? Who made the history books and who didn’t? Who are ‘the makers’ who made the country?” still feel particularly timely. Without too much overt preaching, The Butler provides the right answers to these questions.

The best part of the film for me was its portrayal of the evolution of the father-son relationship between Cecil, who serves the country humbly under numerous presidents with consistency and grace, despite being called an “Uncle Tom” by members of the younger generation, and Louis. [Indeed, Louis’ journey alone contained enough drama to be worthy of its own film: after leaving home for Fisk College, he participates in the lunch counter protests in Nashville, then almost loses his life on the Freedom Riders’ bus, is subsequently repeatedly jailed due to his persistence with nonviolent civil disobedience, listens attentively at the feet of MLK (Nelsan Ellis) in a hotel room in Memphis, becomes disillusioned with the Oakland Black Panther Party after MLK’s assassination, decides to pursue a Master’s degree in Political Science, and is eventually elected to Congress.] The finale in the father-son dramatic plotline occurs when Cecil gives his notice to a sincerely disappointed Ronald Reagan, and then joins Louis in an anti-Apartheid demonstration to free Nelson Mandela on the steps of a D.C. administrative building. Approaching service and responsibility on extremely different paths, the two men grow to respect one other deeply, despite their differences. This storyline helps the film achieve its humanistic and historically revisionist message.

The film also has some lighter moments, mostly provided by Cuba Gooding Jr., and later, Oprah Winfrey. [In one scene, a bewigged and jumpsuit-clad Oprah dances in her living room while watching Soul Train on television. This provided momentary relief from the film’s seriousness, considering it had to cover so many harrowing historical events including JFK’s assassination (which was artfully depicted by showing how Cecil offered help during the time that Jackie Kennedy roamed stunned through D.C. refusing to take off her blood-soaked pink suit, so “they could see what they did to him”), the firebombing of the Freedom Riders’ bus, the hosing of nonviolent protestors in the deep South, etc. However, Oprah’s comic levity is brief, considering that only moments later she and Cecil are devastated with a knock on the door from two uniform-clad U.S. soldiers who bring the news that their younger son Charlie has died in Vietman on Cecil’s birthday. This provides another moment and angle by which the concept of “service” can be fully examined: the film upholds that the three men’s different forms of service deserve equal respect.] Generally speaking, although some of the editing back and forth between close ups in the group scenes with Winfrey felt heavy-handed, and the omnipresence of stars could be distracting, the film’s technical flaws did not eclipse the stellar acting by many of the lesser-known actors (including the beautiful and cunning Yaya Alafia, who played Louis' Panther girlfriend Carol... a particularly poignant scene occurs when Gloria joins Cecil in throwing leather-clad young Panthers Louis and Carol out of their house after Carol unashamedly belches at the table and Louis insults his father's job) who probably should have had top billing over more infamous talents like Robin Williams, Vanessa Redgrave, and hello, Mariah Carey.

Overall, I would recommend this film despite its shortcomings because it depicts such important events from U.S. history in such a compelling, and uniquely unorthodox way. (For example, MLK’s only speech in the film shows him talking about the importance and subversive nature of the black domestic servant. Similarly, the jarring and inadequate nature of the 21-gun salute at Charlie’s funeral, contrasting with the powerful tears shed by the African-American "background actors" in the scene and further set off by Oprah’s sullen and angry stare, provided a view of the effects of the Vietnam War quite unlike any I’d seen previously.) Most problematic in this regard for me was the way the election of Barack Obama was portrayed. Seeing these events through Cecil’s eyes was inspiring, but a bit too triumphalist for my taste. However, if nothing else, the film effectively makes the argument that even the seemingly least important actor can make a difference in world events. “When a butterfly flutters its wings in China, its ripples are felt around the world,” isn’t that right, Ms. Carey? Despite their distracting presence, I do salute the celebrity actors in this film too, if nothing else, for helping to bring attention to the story, as well as to the commendable performances of so many rising industry talents.