Review: Irresistible

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Jon Stewart, former "Daily Show" host and comedian, has long been one of America's sharpest political satirists, so it's disappointing that his second feature as a director - following 2014's much better Iran-set drama "Rosewater" - feels tone deaf and, considering all that has occurred in the United States these past weeks and months, somewhat dated.

The film is a satire on big money in politics, and as such it scores some points - two of its three lead characters are political consultants from the two major parties. But when it comes to depicting middle America - hell, its portrayal of "big city" Democrats fares even worse - the film often comes off as condescending and misguided.

Steve Carrell plays Gary Zimmer, a longtime political strategist who's shocked to see Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. As a means of revitalizing his image, he spots a video of a small town Wisconsin military man lambasting that town's public council for its treatment of immigrants, and decides to convince the man to run as a Democrat for mayor. He and his other Washington D.C.-based political consultants believe the best way to win the country back from the deplorables is one small office in one small town at a time - or something like that.

The military man, named Jack Hastings, is played as a silent type with a sense of wrong and right by Chris Cooper - who else? - and he agrees to Zimmer's scheme suspiciously quickly, especially considering that his town typically only votes Republican. Jack's daughter, Diana (Mackenzie Davis), gets involved in the campaign as well, and she often acts as the voice of conscience to Zimmer.

Zimmer is tormented upon the arrival of Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne), a GOP operative who lies with impunity, and for whom no low is too low. Faith is brought in to help the struggling campaign of the town's Republican mayor, whom Hastings is challenging.

So far, so food, right? Well, "Irresistible" takes a number of misguided steps that are difficult to discuss without giving away too much. Suffice it to say there's a plot twist late in the film that throws Hastings's motives for giving the speech about immigration that drew so much attention into question. However, Stewart aims to use this twist as a Capra-esque statement about good natured people from small towns working together to swindle big city types - a theme present in numerous Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s.

However, in this case, Hastings's speech is piggy backing off actual immigrant woes, so that so-called "real Americans" of the predominantly white, rural heartland can save their own community. Even worse, there's a scene in which Hastings appears before a wealthy group of New York City-based Democratic donors, and they are supposed to represent the greed of the major parties.

However, this is the film's only scene in which a multi-ethnic group of people - comprised of women and people of color - are gathered in one place, and yet this group of people supposedly represents the flaws of our electoral system, while the camaraderie of the lily white Wisconsin community in which Hastings lives is supposed to be symbolic of the American spirit - or some such thing.

There's even a scene early in the film in which "special interests" are smugly referred to - and we are to take that to mean the concerns of the numerous groups that make up the Democratic Party. Don't get me wrong - the film's lone GOP party representative isn't portrayed very kindly either, but the myth of the sympathetic small town community - which we are reminded again and again is a conservative town - is perpetuated here, while the snobby, big city liberals who drink lattes and discuss the struggles of immigrants and women having control over their own bodies - and yes, the GOP party shill played by Byrne - are the villains.

It's an odd stance, especially coming from Jon Stewart - and especially in this day and age. Spike Lee's recent "Da 5 Bloods" was prescient in a powerful way, while this film feels instantly dated, much as Zimmer's approach to campaigns felt so after 2016.

"Irresistible" has some decent arguments to make about the need to get big money out of politics, and although its plot twist is far fetched, there's something to be said about average Americans working together, rather than relying on corrupt party politics - and there are a few funny moments, including a surreal sequence in which a billionaire with an electronic voice box that responds in a sing-song manner visits Hastings's campaign and a few others involving the absurdity of how campaigns use polling. But otherwise, this sophomore feature from one of our nation's best political satirists should have been much sharper than it is.