After several years as a writer, with a voice so distinctive that it bears his name in common parlance, Aaron Sorkin made his directorial debut with Molly’s Game a little while back. Now, while it showed him having ample ability at bringing his own words to the screen (basically the minimum required of writers-turned-directors), there’s something else about that feature that seems to have been overlooked. I got into it in my review proper, and even brought it up looking at Let Him Go a few days ago, but essentially, his first leap showed him as an astounding director of actors. He managed to squeeze a career-highlight performance out of Kevin Costner, and that kind of rapport isn’t something that just every Joe Bloggs with a camera can pull off. So when he’s handed an even bigger all-star cast for his follow-up, you better believe that effect is amplified.
Some of the familiar faces like Mark Rylance (likely here as a result of Steven Spielberg originally being tapped to direct this), Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Frank Langella give performances expected of professionals of their stature. But within the margins, there are some downright revelatory performances in this thing. Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden, one of the titular Seven, is such a portrayal, imbuing the role with a refreshingly natural American tongue and a real fire in his gut to back up all the charged words. He also gives a lot of the key moments in the story, like his actions leading up to the riots and the rousing finale, extra punch through sheer presence and emphatic delivery.
Then there’s Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman. Now, Baron Cohen himself is largely known for one of two things: In-character prank shenanigans, and a frankly underutilised talent for music. While I definitely applaud him on both fronts (where applicable, that is; not all of his schtick works as well as the others), I’ve never really seen him as a dramatic actor before. This managed to change that, although in theory, this isn’t that big a departure from his comedic norm. His depiction of Abbie is as the embodiment of the ‘60s counter-culture, balancing a smartarse sense of humour with a genuine belief that what he’s doing with this protest needs to be done. But between his remarks during the trial, his stand-up recounts of the events, and a major highlight when he takes the stand, he shows a level of heart and soul that I didn’t even know he was capable of.
All of these actors being able to work Sorkin’s iconic rapid-fire mode of dialogue almost becomes an afterthought in the face of what he’s using those words, and effective delivery of them, to say. Specifically, how much of an entire fucking shambles the titular trial was. As anchored by Langella as the presiding judge, as the ultimate straight-face of the cultural joke that was the mood surrounding the Vietnam War, it constantly weaves from being funny (Abbie along with Jeremy Strong in full Cheech-and-Chong mode as Jerry Rubin), powerful like only Sorkin can string together (Rylance and Gordon-Levitt's legal shenanigans), and absolutely stomach-churning (the treatment of Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). It really brings the venom out of Abbie’s mockery of the idea that political trials aren’t a thing.
While there will always be argument to be made regarding historical accuracy (although after Steve Jobs, I wasn’t really expecting him to pull a Zodiac on this one), the way Sorkin captures the mood surrounding this trial, and its reverberations into today, are on par with Spielberg’s own The Post. There’s the grouping-of-political-opponents in Schultz (Gordon-Levitt)’s opening statement about “the Radical Left”, there’s police brutality and intimidation before, during, and after the riots, and then there’s the hostility towards protestors.
I’d say that nothing’s changed, but in the end, that’s why Sorkin stepped into the director’s chair to finish this thing himself. It’s easy to look back with decades’ worth of hindsight and see protesting one of the most unpopular wars in human history (an already crowded category) as an inherently good thing… but another thing hindsight can easily leave in the dust is the notion that we haven’t hit that stage for protests going on right the hell now. It’s why films like this are necessary in the first place, and part of the reason why Abbie’s statements about the importance of cultural revolution ring as true as they do: Turn an important point into entertainment, and watch the magnetism at work.
This is a truly exceptional feature, and one I’m very glad managed to break the COVID shuffle to see release in 2020. Its cast, script, and production values are staggering, and it shows Sorkin delving once again into the triple-think surreality of politics and the legal system to highlight a key example of why the right to protest is so important. “Love it or leave it” is the slogan of those who settle for less, and since when have Americans done anything to a lesser degree than anyone else?
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