Thank You For Smoking...

[KiwiCoromandel]

Aaron Eckhart is a good-looking man with a foxy glint in his eye that equips him well for playing characters whose morals display a certain elasticity. He got his first big break in Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men, as someone who gets his kicks from lying to, rather than with, women. Now he's scored the role of a lifetime as an ace spin doctor for Big Tobacco.

Eckhart's Nick Naylor loves his job. He relishes appearing on TV panels to be lambasted by dying lung cancer sufferers and their distraught loved ones. He even says yes when his son Joey's unsuspecting teacher invites him in to tell the class about his job. "Don't ruin my childhood," mutters Joey, who's been through this sort of thing before.

But Nick knows no inhibitions and, before the teacher succeeds in shutting him up, hits his rapt audience of 12-year-olds with a rousing few words in praise of the spirit of free inquiry. Don't accept what those in authority tell you, he exhorts. Before you make up your minds about anything, try it for yourself.

Thank You for Smoking is adapted from the satirical novel by Christopher Buckley, son of the right-wing polemicist William F. Buckley, whose conservatism has always been graced by a ferocious love of debate and a broad streak of libertarianism, both of which have been inherited by his son. So Nick is not really a company man. He likes working for Big Tobacco only because of the difficulty attached to the job. If he has a life philosophy, it's "I argue, therefore I am".

His closest friends are two fellow pariahs. These two are his comrades-in-arms - literally so in the case of Bobby Jay (David Koechner), who works for the gun lobby. He and Polly (Maria Bello), who speaks for the liquor industry, are masters of the mordant joke and have christened themselves the M.O.D. Squad, as in Merchants of Death. Their regular conversations over lunch in a fuggy Washington hole-in-the-wall constitute the film's running commentary, an acerbic antidote to the public world of spin where Nick's doctoring is done.

This is all tricky stuff. One false move and you send your audience home convinced you really are in favour of pre-teens smoking and the need for a handgun in every home. But writer-director Jason Reitman has a sure touch, together with an interest in the way behaviour is often at odds with professed belief. In other words, his real subject is hypocrisy, which means the villains of the piece are evenly distributed at both extremes of the argument.

It has to be said, however, the clean, green side of the fence possesses the star of the collection - William H. Macy's pernickety Vermont senator Ortolan Finistirre, a fervent anti-smoking campaigner who wears nubbly tweeds and Birkenstocks - often at the same time - and is first seen bawling out his publicist because the cancer sufferer he'd recruited for a TV panel debate looked too healthy.

Almost as obnoxious is Nick's boss, B.R. (J.K. Simmons), a self-aggrandising bully who's refreshingly honest about the virtues of the products he sells. "They're cool, available and addictive," he says. "The job is almost done for us."

Naturally, the media plays a significant role. One notable representative is Katie Holmes's Heather Holloway, a journalist who does much of her investigative work in Nick's bed. And Hollywood's corporate rituals are gleefully sent up when he travels west to consult Rob Lowe as super-agent Jeff Megall about the possibility of making cigarettes glamorous again. Jeff is a tranquil character who has abandoned the power suit for a kimono, yet is still in touch with the bottom line. A substantial investment from Big Tobacco should ensure that plenty of smoke wafts through one of Hollywood's forthcoming blockbusters - and it won't be inhaled merely by the RAVs (Russians, Arabs and villains). At this price, the film's romantic leads will regard the post-coital cigarette as an essential accessory.

In this picture, oddly enough, no one smokes, although the tobacco-coloured interiors subliminally suggest they all are - an effect in tune with the main theme, as spin is just another word for illusion.

As to where Reitman stands once the smoke has cleared, the key is in Nick's relationship with Joey, who begins to take an interest in the ups and downs of his father's work. In this way, Nick is seen a parent and rendered human - but never sentimentalised, I'm relieved to say.

source:Sandra Hall:AP

image:AP:Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor in "Thank You For Smoking".

[Potato]

I thoroughly enjoyed that movie.

[rainbowdemon]

the film's romantic leads will regard the post-coital cigarette as an essential accessory.

Well, it is!!

:)

[Shawn]

Awesome movie.

[slum_goddess]

on my amazon rental list but i don't think it's available for rental yet, last time i checked.

[rainbowdemon]

on my amazon rental list but i don't think it's available for rental yet, last time i checked.

I "rented" my copy here. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet though.

:)