"Lee Daniels' The Butler" at Durham Library Thursday

Movie notes by Don Bourret

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is an unusual film. Think of it as a pseudo docudrama. Though inspired by a real person and true events, this is the story of a fictional White House butler, Cecil Gaines, who serves seven presidents over more than three decades. We follow his life from when, as a sharecropper’s son in 1926, he saw his mother raped and his father murdered by the plantation owner. Through luck, pluck and the kindness of strangers, he eventually acquires a rudimentary education and training in the skills of a manservant, which leads to his being hired to serve in the White House under Dwight Eisenhower.

Dramatic changes had begun to sweep American society, from the civil rights movement to Vietnam and beyond; and Cecil, superbly played by Forest Whitaker, becomes something of a surrogate for many of the black experiences in the latter half of the 20th century. Through his eyes we see the beginnings of the fight for civil rights with the Freedom Riders, the Kennedy assassination, the march on Selma for voting rights, the Martin Luther King assassination, the rise of the Black Panthers, the national internal conflict over our involvement in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Act. We have an eyewitness view of these events, but from a unique perspective, from the seat of power without being any part of that power.

Oprah Winfrey is Gloria, Cecil’s loyal and long-suffering wife, who is not always happy with the compromises he makes as part of his position, but stands by him. It is a marvelous performance, one that earned her AARP’s Best Supporting Actress award, and one that demonstrates conclusively that she is a true actress, not just a former TV host playing at acting. Some of the other castings are interesting also. Robin Williams is Eisenhower. Liev Schreiber is Lyndon Johnson. James Marsden is John Kennedy. John Cusack is Richard Nixon. Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda are particularly effective as Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

The movie’s chief flaw is that it is uneven. There are so many events covered, enough probably to warrant a mini-series, that Director Lee Daniels had to make tough choices as to how much time he should devote to any given one and still have time to deal with the Gaines’ personal and family life. Not everyone agrees with his choices, and the result is that you feel rushed at times.

What I like about the film is that it personalizes those sweeping changes to society. These events all occurred in my time, but I’m embarrassed to admit that too often they were just circumstances and dates, devoid of engagement other than on a superficial level. This film underscores the personal impact of these changes and events and put them in a whole new perspective for me, and I feel better educated about them. That’s not bad for a two-hour movie.