Recently Verizon raised my
FIOS rates by an incredibly large percentage after
their two-year contract expired; shortly thereafter the company offered me the
“lure” of 3 months of free HBO. Tonight, I was in the mood to switch on the TV
and felt mildly - but only mildly - compensated for Verizon’s greed, after
seeing a 2000 film entitled The Contender directed by Rod Lurie depicting a fictional “progressive” President
Jackson Evans”s (Jeff Bridges) nomination of a woman, Senator Laine Hanson
(Joan Allen) to be Vice President of the US, filling a vacancy after the former
Veep suddenly dies. We observe the candidate’s confirmation hearings and are
shown how the system is perverted through innuendo and outright lies.
This movie reveals the
underpinnings of the nomination process focusing on the particularly vicious
political maneuvering against a woman candidate. By now most of us have watched confirmation sessions and we
are familiar with the hollow moral righteousness of the political players. In The
Contender the treatment of the female
candidate is strewn with double standards that no male nominee would ever have
to endure.
There is an idealistic tenor
to this film that might be considered too sentimental and sappy, but in fact
stirred me deeply. Joan Allen, a wonderful actor in another impressive
performance portrays a woman who will not be deterred from her deep-rooted
principles displaying a stoic dignity in the face of the opposition party’s
attempts to defame her character. She is a person who understands and respects
herself and that is the crux of her mettle. What made this more than just
another Hollywood film was Joan Allen’s incorruptible grandeur, her dialogue often stunned me with its simple
truths.
One last point - I don’t want
to forget to mention that the “conservative” opposition is led by the imposing
actor Gary Oldman who can bring humanity to even the lowest of cockroaches.
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