'The Butler' - Movie Review

*To check out my published review of The Butler, grab a copy of the April 2014 edition of Empire magazine. 

How we write, reflect upon and teach history is important. Today, governments believe they have a mandate to decide what history should be taught and how. Yet as recent films, such as Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, 12 Years A Slave, and The Butler, have demonstrated, films also have the potential to teach and make us reflect on the past. 

However, there is also a tendency when making a period piece to bite off more than you can chew. Lee Daniels’ decision to tell fifty years’ worth of American history causes The Butler to feel like a primary school history lesson, where we spend one minute on each event with only an occasional moment of substance being added.

 

This is the major issue surrounding Daniels’ film, which tells the life story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), as he rose from his impoverished cotton picking upbringing to become a butler at the White House.

In Precious and The Paperboy, Daniels showed flare and a unique brand of provocative storytelling.  The Butler is anything but, unfortunately, with Daniels instead taking on a typical biographical narrative. The provocative streak has also been replaced with “acceptableness” and only a few gutsy lines of dialogue.

And while the acting is strong – Whitaker and David Oyelowo portray the fractured relationship of a father and son terrifically – the cameos from Robin Williams and co., as different 20^th century presidents, serves as unintended humour.

"We have no tolerance for politics at the White House."

Despite its disappointing narrative structure and development, The Butler still is a must-see, as it attempts to tell an important historical story.
 

7/10