Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history--by far--and yet this HBO adaptation of a Broadway play is the first that really tries to paint a picture of this legendary figure. Rob Reiner's film LBJ, due out later this year, will star Woody Harrelson as a younger Johnson, but here with All the Way, the focus is on the first four tumultuous years of a very tumultuous presidency, and so it starts with the sounds of a parade, followed by gunshots. It does not require an MA in History to infer that we are starting in November of 1963, when John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Someone comes to whisper in Johnson's ear: "He's gone." The "he" is Kennedy, and Johnson is now an "accidental president."Bryan Cranston, the actor as talented as Kevin Spacey but with less overacting, looks remarkably similar to LBJ. He squints and he glares, he smiles a thousand smiles. His face is wrinkled and his ears are enormous. I haven't read any of the four (soon to be five) biographies of Johnson by renowned historian Robert Caro, but one anecdote from Caro I remember hearing on TV was how Caro went to a rural area of Texas similar to where Johnson grew up in during a pitch-black evening to get a better sense of what life was like in the pre-electrification of rural Texas. Johnson certainly had a tougher upbringing than his predecessor (who is more and more becoming known as an overrated president) and just about all of his successors. It did things to him, and that is visualized through Cranston's performance. Cranston originated the role on Broadway in the play written by Robert Schenkkan that won Best Play at the 2014 Tony Awards. Cranston and Schenkkan are working with probably the most qualified man to direct the televised adaptation: Jay Roach. Roach's most famous films are hilarious comedies: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Meet the Parents, and The Campaign are just a few of them. But he's also worked for HBO in Recount, the story of the stolen 2000 presidential election, and Game Change, which adapted the tell-all tale of the 2008 election and focused on the Sarah Palin episode.
The first major scene in All the Way is Johnson's first address to Congress, and here we see the major players of this story and the impressive actors behind them: Martin Luther King (Anthony Mackie), Hubert Humphrey (Bradley Whitford), Richard Russell (Frank Langella), and J. Edgar Hoover (Stephen Root). LBJ pressures Congress to pass the civil rights legislation that Kennedy had proposed (but dragged his feat on because he really wasn't all that interested). This is the McGuffin of the film: civil rights, and the delicate balance in ensuring its success. Not the remaining parts of the Great Society or Vietnam, but civil rights. And MLK is LBJ's great agitator, supporter, and partner. If this all sounds quite similar to Selma from two years ago, it's because it is. But All the Way is told more from the prospective of Johnson and less of King. So in essence, these two films can be paired together nicely.
Johnson walks a thin rope. He has to keep the conservative element of the Democratic Party--the Southern wing that has stuck with the Democrats since before the Civil War--from revolting and switching sides. This, as we all know, was a failure. The conservative shift towards the Republican Party accelerated after Johnson's 1964 election victory. He has to satisfy Humphrey and the Senate liberals and the civil rights movement who distrust him and believe he will water down any bill. And he has to do all of this while Vietnam is deteriorating.
This may not be a birth-to-death narrative of Johnson, and rightly so, but all those anecdotes you might recall for history class are sprinkled throughout: him pulling his ears dogs, defecating with the door open as he strategies with his aides, and giving members of Congress the "Johnson treatment," charming and even threatening his opponents. And yes, he did refer to that part of his body as his "bunghole". As was the case with last year's Trumbo (also directed by Roach), Cranston has a tendency to overdo things from time to time. But the one who overacts the most is Root. Most of the time, Root, in his best roles (Office Space, Finding Nemo, The West Wing) gets the notes just right. Here, as FBI Director Hoover, however, he's just as snaky as American mythology apparently dictates he has to be, but this is television, not Broadway. Other than Cranston, it is Whitford who provides the most interesting performance to watch, and it's his best since his days on The West Wing. But it's disappointing that we don't get to see more of Melissa Leo as Lady Bird Johnson. Lady Bird is right behind her husband, where she's "always been," and it reinforces the view most Americans have that the First Ladies are simply there to support their husbands and nothing else. Amanda Taub, the best writer at Vox, wrote an interesting article last September after that awkward GOP debate in which the candidates were asked which women they thought should be placed on American currency. Mike Huckabee showed how serious he was as a presidential candidate by claiming it should be his wife, while Jeb Bush offered Margaret Thatcher (seriously). Chris Christie made a somewhat serious effort by telling the audience that it should be Abigail Adams, but his reasoning was simply that without her we wouldn't be here today because John Adams wouldn't have had the support he needed. First Ladies support and care, nothing else. That's the view this film takes as well.
The first act of All the Way is certainly superior to the second, which drags. It becomes practically Shakespearean as Johnson feels he's being backed into a corner by everyone, and that people aren't being grateful for all he's doing. He succumbs to the worst angels of his nature, growing arrogant, paranoid, and mean, barking orders at Vice President Humphrey. It becomes almost predictable, checking boxes required for most biographical movies. Ultimately, though, this is a very apt film for our times. After all, we currently have a Republican nominee for president who really seems to despise people of color. We are in an era where voting rights are under siege, and apparently it is deeply offensive to many people to say that black lives do in fact matter. A film like All the Way is necessary to remind us of where our country has come from and how we still have not reached the promised land.
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