"Lobbying is about foresight, about anticipating your opponent's moves, and devising counter measures. The winner walks one step ahead of the opposition. It's about making sure you surprise them, and they don't surprise you."
With these first few lines that open the movie and guide the rest of the film, Jessica Chastain sets the tone for John Madden's ("Shakespeare in Love," "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel") political thriller about DC lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane (Chastain) as she takes on the biggest challenge of her lobbying career.
Elizabeth Sloane is a career-driven woman who never sleeps and always works. Physically sustained by her assortment of pills and mentally vitalized by her dedication to her job, Miss Sloane approaches every aspect of her life with a meticulousness and a precision that rivals that of a surgeon or a scientist; even sex is treated by Elizabeth as yet another task on her list of to-dos to complete. Her attention to detail and her sense of intuition have made her a highly sought-after lobbyist in the realm of DC politics, but when she's approached by her biggest potential client yet, the NRA, she inexplicably turns them down. For no apparent reason, Elizabeth Sloane sacrifices her job at the most prestigious lobbying firm in the city for morals that are never fully explained.
Instead, Miss Sloane joins the lobbying campaign of a Mr. Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), whose team is lobbying against her former employer to pass the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which would mandate federal background checks for all firearm purchases made in the U.S. The audience isn't fully aware whether she's driven by her sudden commitment to gun control or her extreme desire to win. True to the movie's opening words, the entire film is a game of political chess, with Miss Sloane anticipating the moves her former team will make and using every resource she has — including her colleagues and even herself — in order to make sure they won't be able to anticipate hers.
Jessica Chastain shines in her role as Miss Sloane, with her crimson red lipstick, stark against her pale complexion, and her steely gaze evoking a ruthless, unapologetic character not too dissimilar from her role in "Zero Dark Thirty." Screenwriter Jonathan Perera's debut screenplay keeps you on your toes and at the edge of your seat, with rapid-fire Aaron Sorkin-esque dialogue and twists and turns at every corner.
Even the narrative structure of the movie is enough to keep the audience engaged, as its achronological storytelling invokes the same air of mystery and intrigue as does Miss Sloane herself. The film opens with Elizabeth being interrogated by the Senate Ethics Committee for having broken the law by arranging an "educational" trip for a Senator on behalf of her Indonesian client. But it is only later revealed at the film's climax that such an act — an oversight someone as meticulous as Miss Sloane wouldn't regard lightly — was in fact a ploy to get herself a hearing with the same judge who had been colluding with her opponents in defending the NRA. Moreover, the narrative structure designed by Perera proves to be just as efficient in unfolding the plot as Miss Sloane is in accomplishing her mission.
Perhaps the only criticism I have of "Miss Sloane" is that in spite of its detailed and intricate characterization of Elizabeth Sloane, the audience never really gets a sense of why she's the way she is; by the end of the movie, we still don't know if her motives derived from a personal affliction with guns or purely from her desire to win. The only real glimpse we get of her humanity — of the woman behind the ruthless, steel gaze — is her interactions with Forde (John Lacy), an escort she's hired to fulfill her sexual needs that has inexplicably brought out a side of Miss Sloane no one else has yet been privy to.
But in a movie so elaborately written and tightly executed, any paucity of history or backstory on the titular character could hardly be chalked up to carelessness or lack of character development. Rather, the ambiguity and the mystery that surrounds Miss Sloane does not detract from the story or lessen its impact but heightens it; it makes each twist and turn more surprising and unexpected and ultimately thrilling precisely because we don't know Miss Sloane enough to know what to expect from her. Miss Sloane may be manipulative and cold and unrelatable, but the last thing she is is straightforward — and that what makes her as compelling and complex as the movie itself.
Watch the trailer below:
Reach Staff Reporter Jenny Truong here.
Annenberg Media