A KINDER, GENTLER SATIRE
Writer-director Jon Stewart’s Irresistible gets back to basics while earning laughs
Jon Stewart, erstwhile host of TV’S The Daily Show, has had a bumpy movie career. He’d be the first to tell you his acting roles included a turn in 2002’s Death to Smoochy, a low point for many, including Robin Williams and Edward Norton. And his directing debut in 2014 was the painfully earnest Rosewater, about the detention and torture of Canadian-iranian journalist Maziar Bahari by the Iranian government. Not a bad film, but not the tone you expect from a great satirist.
Fortunately, his newest, Irresistible, is exactly what you’d expect of the politically savvy comedian. Which is not to say it’s predictable. There’s a sly twist in the final reel that few will see coming. Oh, and don’t stand up as soon as the credits start rolling or you’ll miss the best bit of meta-movie humour since 2018’s Vice.
The plot is loosely based on a 2017 congressional election in Georgia that was blown out of political proportion — and lavishly contested — by the two main U.S. political parties. In Stewart’s fictional version it’s a mayoral campaign in the fictional truck stop town of Deerlaken, Wis.
In D.C., Democratic strategist Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) sees a video of farmer and retired Colonel Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) making an impassioned speech in the town hall. He snaps to the notion that this man could be a Republican-style Democrat, just the wedge needed to turn diehard red voters blue.
So he flies into the flyover state and offers his services to Jack, who reluctantly agrees to run as a Democrat for mayor. Jack’s daughter, Diana (Mackenzie Davis), lends a hand and provides a modicum of romantic distraction for Gary. But then into the fight wades Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne), Gary’s longtime political rival, deciding to back the incumbent and kick this Democratic donkey wrangler in the ass.
As writer and director, Stewart proves to be an equal-opportunity satirist. Though clearly on the side of the Democrats, he takes great pains to make neither Carell nor Byrne particularly likable characters. Though Carell does get the better lines, at one point describing his candidate as “Bill Clinton with impulse control” and “a churchgoing Bernie Sanders with better bone density.”
And Cooper is perfectly cast as the gruff and grandfatherly former soldier, telling it like it is and occasionally referring to events not by calendar date but by past conflict: “Hanson’s owned this place since Korea.” He’s so salt-of-the-earth, his potato crop probably comes out of the ground pre-seasoned.
And sure, there’s some light ribbing about Midwest types — casual dress sense, beards, lack of racial diversity, overt politeness, etc. Canadians have faced worst cultural stereotyping at the hands of Hollywood, and in this case it’s in the service of highlighting the differences between Wisconsinites and the East Coast moneyed elite — between the Badgers and the Beltway, if you will. Again, Stewart clearly identifies more with one group but is happy to mock both.
There’s no better place to make political hay than in rural middle America, but Irresistible softens its satirical blows with a sense of heart. So one moment you’re watching the silliest example of a mayoral TV spot, one that describes Cooper’s character as “a redder kind of blue” as his face on the screen turns purple. But then have Carell telling him: “I really believe that you believe what I believe.”
It’s a simple sentiment, and feels like the nearest things to the essence of democracy since the Greeks invented it. Count on Stewart to take us back to basics, and make us laugh while doing it.