Miss Sloane
20/05/17 Filed in: Cinema
This week's film at the cinema was Miss Sloane, starring Jessica Chastain. I had seen a clip from the film previously, and having since watched the trailer, I would say that it's a film that's not represented well by short clips. In brief, it was a great deal better than I expected. Jessica Chastain can do no wrong in my book but, bias aside, here she is totally obsessive, extremely smart and very attractive.
The film initially provides us with a flash-forward, where Elizabeth Sloane is defending herself in a Senate hearing. This established, we are shown how this situation has come about.
Sloane is working for lobbying firm Cole Kravitz & Waterman when she is asked to attend a meeting with the representative of a gun manufacturer, who is seeking the company's help to target a gun positive message towards women. Sloane openly ridicules the idea in the face of the numerous killings of children by unhinged gunmen. Her reaction doesn't enamour her to her bosses, who have worked hard to secure this contract. While this is going on, Sloane is approached in the street by Rodolfo Schmidt, of rival lobbying firm Peterson Wyatt, who would like her to work against the gun lobby on the run up to the proposed Heaton-Harris bill that would expand background checks on gun purchases. Sloane sees this as the ultimate challenge and resigns from her existing company, taking many of her staff with her, but her personal assistant, Jane Molloy, declines, citing her career and future.
At Peterson Wyatt the team soon find out that Sloane's tactics are extreme, and we start to learn more about her as a person. The inability to sleep, the reliance on pep pills, the businesslike nature of her sex life, and the fact that she would appear to stop at nothing to forward her objectives. She becomes close to Esme Manucharian, the company's expert on gun statistics, a woman who when younger had been the victim of gun violence, but who is emphatic that that remains a personal matter and should under no account be used in the campaign. By a range of inspired tactics the team starts to nibble away at the senators that they need to convince to support their cause. Cole Kravitz & Waterman start to become extremely worried and dirty tricks are formulated to undermine Sloane, but as is her reputation, she manages to stay one step ahead. She also has a few tricks of her own, one of which alienates Esme Manucharian, and her new boss Rodolfo Schmidt is starting to become concerned.
As Sloane's campaign starts to make more and more inroads into the wavering senators, Cole Kravitz & Waterman seek to take her down by looking for incriminating evidence from the time she worked for them. Her former assistant Molloy finds the 'smoking gun', while George Dupont, of Cole Kravitz & Waterman, leans heavily on Congressman Sperling to preside over a Senate hearing to incriminate Sloane. This brings us up to date with the flash-forward we saw earlier, and from now on we jump between the two time frames.
The case against Sloane appears watertight, and after she appears to break from her reliance on avoiding self-incrimination by quoting the Fifth Amendment, her position seems to be lost. Meanwhile the support for the anti-gun campaign starts to waver and reverse. The hearing also throws up other surprises concerning Sloane's private life. But Sloane hasn't earned her reputation for no good reason. As she says, you keep your trump card until after the other side has played theirs.
Superb acting and an intricate plot, leading to an ending that is likely to come as quite a surprise.
As Sloane's campaign starts to make more and more inroads into the wavering senators, Cole Kravitz & Waterman seek to take her down by looking for incriminating evidence from the time she worked for them. Her former assistant Molloy finds the 'smoking gun', while George Dupont, of Cole Kravitz & Waterman, leans heavily on Congressman Sperling to preside over a Senate hearing to incriminate Sloane. This brings us up to date with the flash-forward we saw earlier, and from now on we jump between the two time frames.
The case against Sloane appears watertight, and after she appears to break from her reliance on avoiding self-incrimination by quoting the Fifth Amendment, her position seems to be lost. Meanwhile the support for the anti-gun campaign starts to waver and reverse. The hearing also throws up other surprises concerning Sloane's private life. But Sloane hasn't earned her reputation for no good reason. As she says, you keep your trump card until after the other side has played theirs.
Superb acting and an intricate plot, leading to an ending that is likely to come as quite a surprise.