A flawed political thriller that boasts a simmering lead performance from Jessica Chastain.
Miss Sloane was screened ahead of its theatrical release at the AFI Film Festival.
Gun control is one of the most hotly debated topics in American politics right now, and the subject is taken head on in Miss Sloane, the newest outing from director John Madden. Starring Jessica Chastain in the titular role, the film’s a sleek political thriller, with Aaron Sorkin or Oliver Stone-level ambitions that comes close for more than a majority of its run time, but ultimately, ends up feeling more like a very strong episode of How to Get Away with Murder.
Coming from Madden and first time screenwriter Jonathan Perera, Miss Sloane is a polished and fast-talking look at the underbelly of American politics, and specifically, at some of the most powerful influencers in the entire system: the lobbyists. In an industry already filled with powerful, feared players though, no one in the industry is quite as well-respected as Chastain’s Madeline Elizabeth Sloane. We meet her busily working her way around the legal complications of sending a senator to Indonesia for a relaxing “research trip” about palm oil being imported into the US as part of the “Nutella tax.”
Working already as one of the most expensive and morally grey players in the industry, Sloane leaves her empirical firm (run by Sam Waterston’s George Dupont) when she’s given the opportunity to help make sure a new gun control bill passes into legislation, the same bill that Waterston’s firm has been hired to help bring down. In her departure, Sloane brings along a number of her more talented proteges, and who also happen to be a majority of the firm’s head lobbyists, in a scene that happily acknowledges its Jerry Maguire similarities. Working for much less than what she’s used to, against a number of her former colleagues as well (headed by a gleefully charismatic Michael Stuhlbarg), what follows is Sloane taking on the biggest fight of her career, not for money, but because she says it’s something she believes in.
Perera frames all of the gun control fight around a court investigation (headed by John Lithgow's character) against Sloane several months into the future, which seems poised to end her lobbying career once and for all. The further into the campaign storyline the film gets, the more blanks are filled in, as Perera continuously cuts back and forth between the battle that led to Sloane’s court case and the investigation itself.
Wearing its Aaron Sorkin influences on its sleeve by letting its characters talk faster and smarter than any human beings actually do, and boasting a number of scenes where they are quicker to prove their point with a roundabout monologue about nuns having sex than they are by simply telling it in a straightforward manner, Miss Sloane attempts admirably to reach the same heights as its influential predecessors. To its credit, it comes closer than it really has any right to more than a few times along the way.
As you can probably imagine, a majority of that credit must be given to Jessica Chastain, who brings Sloane to life with such ferocity and raw talent that it becomes much easier to forgive Miss Sloane of its flaws because of her alone. She’s made a career out of giving consistently incredible performances, and with Miss Sloane she’s given us one of her best performances to date, even if the rest of the film doesn’t manage to live up to her talent and abilities.
Filling out the rest of the main cast is Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Esme, one of the lobbyists working at her new firm, with a history of pro-gun control beliefs that Sloane later goes on to exploit for the benefit of her campaign. The scenes between the two actresses are some of the best in the film, blatantly acknowledging the numerous flaws of Sloane herself, something a lesser film might not have had the guts to do. Miss Sloane doesn’t celebrate its lead heroine’s ruthless nature or ability to be ten steps ahead of her opponents on Capitol Hill because if the system is indeed rotten, as Sloane states, then that also means she must be as well.
Unfortunately, where its first two acts manage to skate over some of its more absurd moments, Miss Sloane noticeably falls apart in its closing minutes. Rather than live true to its overly cynical look at American politics, and Sloane’s place amongst it all, Perera and Madden instead opt for an ending that not only feels like a strange 180 degree turn away from everything else that we’ve seen before, but feels overly predictable, causing the film to fall disappointingly off its high wire act straight into a soap opera tone. Not even Chastain’s awe-inspiring dedication to her character and performance are able to make you overlook some of the glaring cliches evident here.
Overall, that's a fairly concise summation of Miss Sloane too, as a flawed, if not entertaining deep dive into the underbelly of American politics. It comes with its teeth bared, promising to be just as ferocious and thought-provoking as any of its Aaron Sorkin-penned predecessors, and even if its bite doesn’t prove to be as sharp as it may believe or want you to think, that doesn’t take away from the admirable nature of its ambition either.
The Verdict
Despite a promising opening and premise, Miss Sloane ends up being a stereotypical political thriller, which falls victim to a number of the genre’s well-known cliches, and is elevated solely by the awards-worthy performance of Jessica Chastain as its titular character.
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