Irresistible

Cert N/A; now streaming

American comedian Jon Stewart’s first original screenplay is released, very deliberately, into the run-up to the US elections. For a large part of the film it is what you expect it to be: a relatively familiar satire of a clearly flawed electoral system.

But it reveals layers and makes turns that show up new flaws with the old. It’s light and it’s funny but it has a point. At the end the title comes up and the middle syllables are clear: irRESISTible.

In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s presidential defeat, campaign manager Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) sees redemption in a Wisconsin veteran (Chris Cooper) who stands up for immigrants.

Gary sees an opportunity to break the deadlock of usual demographic electoral stereotypes; the story takes off, and he and his bitter rival (Rose Byrne, together, above)) find themselves leading the Washington campaign/lobbying juggernaut in small-town America.

Initially I was disappointed to see Stewart trade in such a hackneyed ‘sophisticate versus hick’ trope, but suffice to say I needn’t have been. As a comedy it works, but there is more to it than that.