November 21, 2018 4 min to read

The Front Runner

The Front Runner might ask more questions than it answers, but they’re really, really good questions. Reitman is asking us to hit pause, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to talk about the birth of tabloid journalism.

by Zach Saul

Jason Reitman says that The Front Runner was written during the Obama years when all of us weren’t quite as sick of politics as we are now. The movie has surely evolved since then as part of the production - but no movie in 2018 better reflected what the world, and specifically the media is grappling with than The Front Runner. The not so secret truth about The Front Runner is that it’s not really about Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman), it’s about the role of the journalist in our democracy. Gary Hart was the Democratic frontrunner for the 1988 nomination from Colorado who was smart, personable, well liked and weeks away from being nominated by his own party to be the candidate in the general election - until he wasn’t. Two reporters from the Miami Herald caught wind of a weekend Hart spent aboard the Monkey Business ship where he met Donna Rice whom he allegedly had an affair with. The reporters hid outside Hart’s home and photographed the two of them entering and exiting the apartment, sparking a national scandal and ending his campaign. Reitman’s movie details the s***storm that followed that report by the Miami Herald - and deconstructs the role of all parties involved.

It’d be tempting to point the finger at Hart, and let the audience have 90 minutes of fun at his expense - after all the man did board a boat called “Monkey Business” during his campaign push. But Reitman is a better storyteller and a better filmmaker than that. All of the characters are in conflict throughout the movie, and we get to spend time with each perspective to understand the predicament from their point of view. Gary (Jackman) is constantly wrestling with whether or not he should dignify the media frenzy with a response - and chooses mostly not to answer the reporters shoving mics in his face. Gary’s wife Lee (Vera Farmiga) is struggling with whether or not she should leave her husband - and what the best way for her to verbalize her anger in public and private. His campaign manager Bill Dixon (J.K Simmons) is struggling visibly with which side of history he’d like to land on. He empathizes both with Gary’s assertion that personal affairs shouldn’t matter, but also with the press’ argument that the people have a right to know given he’s running for president. One of Gary’s staffers, Irene (Molly Ephraim) is struggling with whether or not everyone’s sympathies should be with Gary and his family or with Donna Rice (Gary’s mistress) given the media firestorm. A reporter close to the campaign, AJ (Mamoudou) is actively trying to decide if the media’s questions and their behavior are on the right side of “the line” and grapples with what he thinks the right way to fulfill his journalistic duties is.

Reitman doesn’t tell you what to think in The Front Runner and leaves room for you to condemn Gary’s negligence and promiscuous behavior while still wondering sincerely if the behavior of the Herald reporters was appropriate. The poignant, society-altering question The Front Runner poses is: does our obsession with celebrity trump (no pun intended) our desire to have competent leaders? The prevalence, and wildness of gossip and outrage culture in 2018 have run rampant on both sides of the isle - and Reitman’s film provocatively asks: Hart’s reprehensible transgressions aside, are our priorities in the right order?

The Good: The Front Runner is wonderfully nuanced - and feels at times like a special episode of Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing. It grapples with a very ambitious set of issues from journalistic integrity, to marital obligation, and even bystander apathy. To the movie’s credit it never feels slanted, and as all great historical movies do— instead of condemning its characters it challenges their behaviors.

The Bad: Critics of The Front Runner have largely condemned it for not addressing many of the issues it poses or for being critical of the journalist’s role in Gary’s demise. I did leave the film feeling a certain type of frustration, but it’s hard to fault Reitman for that — as it was clearly an intentional choice. I think the real travesty for The Front Runner was it’s release date. A few years earlier or a few years later and I’d guess The Front Runner gets a 20% bump from critics who aren’t as sick of politics as they are now.

I’m only human, and as a reluctant member of 2018’s “gossip culture” I’d be remised if I didn’t admit I’m intensely curious if Hillary Clinton has seen the movie and wonder what she thinks of it.