Against All Odds
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
3/28/2024 FAIR WARNING! My computer’s behaved itself recently, but there’s another reason why I might not be posting next week: logistics. With the Golden State Warriors basketballers fighting to make the postseaon, the Oakland Athletics baseballers opening night on Thursday, a play to see in Berkeley on Saturday, and Easter visit/dinner with some of the in-laws on Sunday I’m not sure what opportunity I might have to watch something and report on it next week. If not, I'll be back.
Shirley (John Ridley) rated PG-13 118 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
For this review, I'll present no Spoiler alert warnings because everything being depicted here (except, I assume, most of the dialogue, which probably has been hypothesized/improvised) about Ms. Chisholm can be found in various biographies, so there’s nothing for me to partly-hide from you.
What Happens: This biopic (see Related Links below for recommendations of others of this type of cinema) of Shirley Chisholm is focused only on a few months of her life, but likely the ones she’ll most be remembered for, or, if she’s not immediately recognizable to you, this will help present a sense of one of the most impressive (but grueling) chapters in all of U.S. politics. Chisholm (Oscar-winner [for If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins, 2028; review in our January 2, 2019 posting] Regina King) became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress (November, 1968) with this docudrama beginning in January 1969 as she comes from her district in Brooklyn, NYC to Washington, D.C. to be sworn in, only to find she’s been assigned to the Agricultural Committee which she feels has no relevance for her constituents (after complaining to fellow-Democrat, House Speaker John W. McCormack [Ken Strunk], she was later re-assigned); however, the full focus here begins at Christmas-time 1971 when she decides to run for President in the coming spring, despite strong objections from her closest advisors, Wesley McDonald “Mac” Holder (Lance Reddick) and Arthur Hardwick Jr. (Terrence Howard), a White college kid she recruited to help her with the youth vote, Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges), and her husband, Conrad Chisholm (Michael Cherrie), who acts as security head and photographer for her campaign, as they all see no chance of her success.
As if her home-resistance isn’t enough of a problem, there’s also the racism (and patriarchy) dogging her, but she gives a strong speech at Mills College in Oakland, CA (where I worked for 26 years, but long after she was there) where she meets young single-mother Barbara Lee (Christina Jackson) with no interest in the uselessness of politics until Shirley convinces her to join the campaign, becoming a prominent figure in the organization, then later went on to a long career in Congress herself (just now finishing her final term). As the primary season progresses, Shirley gets support from noted feminists Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Gloria Steinem, but she passes on the New Hampshire primary due to the mostly-White electorate there, puts her energy into Florida; however, she secures only 3.5% of the vote and almost gets stabbed by a knife-wielding-assailant, leading to some tense talk with Conrad. Next are national TV debates on ABC, CBS, and NBC, but she’s not invited due to her slim primary results; she counters with a successful lawsuit invoking the Equal Time FCC requirement, gets her some needed TV time; still, she keeps butting heads with campaign manager Stan Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell) who quits/is fired, due somewhat to her insistence to keep nuance in her answers to press questions rather than trying to be more concise.
She’s also having problems with her sister, Muriel (Reina King [Regina's sister, also one of the several producers, along with Regina), who thinks Shirley was always Daddy’s favorite, is embarrassing the family now. Further tension comes with Conrad when she needs $36K to keep the campaign going, can only raise it using her Congressional salary, their sole source of income. An ironic problem then comes when famous segregationist/former Alabama governor George Wallace (W. Earl Brown), running a Third Party-campaign, is shot, with Shirley defying all opposition to see him in the hospital (loss of use of lower limbs), pray for him. Shirley manages to pick up some support, though, as TV star Diane Carroll (Amirah Vann) arranges a meeting between Chisholm and Oakland Black Panther honcho Huey P. Newton (Brad James). As the Miami Beach convention rolls around in July she also finds some help from the Hubert Humphrey and Edward Muskie teams, recruiting her to join them in challenging CA’s winner-take-all primary, instead wanting delegates proportional to the votes, but this fails with harsh opposition from George McGovern-backer Willie Brown (not in the cast list, might be documentary footage). A final failure for Chisholm comes from candidate Walter Fauntroy (André Holland) who’d earlier agreed to release his delegates to Shirley but instead sends them to McGovern, aiding in his first-ballot-victory (Shirley ended up with 152 first-ballot-delegates), with nothing for Chisholm except needed-reconciliation with Muriel. At the end, a brief testimonial’s given by actual Congresswoman/recent Senate candidate Barbara Lee; pre-credits graphics tell us that Shirley and Conrad divorced in 1977, with her afterward marrying Arthur.
So What? I’m now trying to focus on 2024 releases (though I did make a correction on how Bella got from Paris to London in my review of Poor Things [Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023], as well as add a video to my review of The Iron Claw [Sean Durkin, 2023] where the director and 3 of the “Von Erich brothers” discuss aspects of that movie [last sentence of the So What? section])—but I’m finding the pickings slim, so I wasn’t sure what I’d see this week until I stumbled across Shirley which took me back decades to personal memories, just as The Iron Claw. However, what I most remember about the 1972 Presidential campaign tends sharply to the negative as I had some minor clashes with my father who was disturbed anyone had the free time to be showing up at the political conventions to protest rather than working 9 to 5 five days a week like he had to (in his case, fixing broken cash registers for NCR), then faced existential trauma when Democrat George McGovern, whose party platform contained so many elements I embraced, lost in a horrific landslide in the re-election of Republican Richard Nixon, whose not-so-Silent Majority led him to victory in all but 1 state, completely dashing my naïve beliefs that the American public was ready to move noticeably in the directions of change, fairness, acceptance of those whose needs had been too long denied, etc.
Since then, I’ve been generally cynical about what can be expected of most politicians no what they claim to advocate, with some hope restored to me in aspects of the Presidential terms of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, countered by the years I’ve endured with Ronald Reagan, the father-son Bush boys, and—most terrifyingly—the Orange Goon whose name I’ll avoid for now, with growing fear his manipulation of law, truth, and the gullible-swath of the electorate might bring this fascist/racist/self-absorbed fool back into power. All that combo of hope and dismay is returned powerfully to me in portions of Shirley as this determined woman continued to fight for what she believed in—mainly, politics belongs to the people, not those rich/powerful enough to manipulate the system for their own benefit—even against incredible odds (embodying the hope I desperately want to see with this country run fairly and legally, from local school boards all the way up to the ultimate D.C. Deciders, including the Supreme Court), yet there's the dismay about the way political decisions are so often made not by principles and agreements but by expediency as in the case of Fauntroy releasing his delegates to McGovern before the first ballot was taken instead of waiting to release them to Chisholm as he’d promised to do, then some other Black delegates being shuffled over to McGovern as well (even as Chisholm’s forces tried to challenge the winner-take-all instead of proportional distribution of delegates based on a state’s primary voting) by men I’ve come to admire in my time in CA since 1984, Ron Dellums (Dorian Missick in this movie) and Willie Brown.
I know politics is a dirty business with the Constitution often used as a rhetorical device or a crafty strategy to achieve a dubious goal, but I keep hoping—deep in my barren soul—there would be, on a regular basis, more leaders of governments (local, state, national) who truly want to make life better for their constituents rather than simply finding methods of re-election. Shirley stirs up the hope that there have been/are/will be such leaders of principle rather than self-aggrandizement, but it also shows how the pragmatics of winning (even when the cause appears to be noble) can often leave principles in the dust. I also have to say that back in 1972 I was completely in support of McGovern, as I finally had the opportunity to vote. I’d missed the 1968 election by less than 2 months of being 21 then, as did a lot of people my age who might have been able to prevent Nixon from even a first term, but that’s all speculation; in 1972 Chisholm and her supporters were in hopes 18-year-olds being allowed to vote for the first time might have made a difference (I’m sure the McGovern team thought the same), but that hope faded, just as I fear it might in 2024 as many young potential voters (and vocal pro-Palestinians) seem inclined to support some alternative to Trump and Biden or just not vote at all, which I fear may benefit Trump in the all-important Electoral College tally (or truly lead to riots in the streets if the Mar-A-Lago Dark Lord should lose once again).
Back in 1972 I appreciated what Shirley Chisholm stood for but was all-in with McGovern, simply because I thought he had a legitimate chance to win in a country where any female candidate (just ask Hilary Clinton or my wife, Nina) has a horribly-difficult task in being elected President (rather the better odds they face of becoming Senators from Blue states), especially a woman who’s Black in a country still more racist than many will admit (except those who conveniently raise the specter of President Kamala Harris as a reason not to vote for age-challenged Joe Biden again). Chisholm faced that seemingly-insurmountable-challenge head-on, possibly in a more stubborn fashion than was pragmatically-advisable, as least as depicted in this movie—San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle says the actual Chisholm was more flexible than she’s shown to be here—so if you’d like to know more about her than just these few months presented on screen I encourage you to look into biographies such as this one. Whether you choose to see the movie or not may depend upon what you know already, what you don’t care to know more about, or whether such content has interest for you. If you decide to see it, though, at the very least I think you’ll be highly impressed by King’s acting prowess and this version of Shirley Chisholm as a dedicated warrior for just causes, no matter the popularity of her position. (Sorry if I got too strung-out on me rather than Shirley, but this is the type of personally-focused-story that calls for a personal response from its viewers—including me.)
Bottom Line Final Comments: Netflix is the distributor here so even with a limited domestic (U.S.-Canada) theatrical release on March 15, 2024 you’re not going to get any box-office information on its big-screen presence (nor will you be likely to find it in most areas) because the true focus is on getting you to watch it on Netflix streaming, free if you’re a subscriber to the platform. Like LaSalle, the CCAL’s restrained in encouraging your attention as it’s gotten only 71% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, a considerably-lower 57% Metacritic average score, so you may factor that in to your decision although whatever you choose to do I encourage you to either see this movie or turn to other resources to learn more about Ms. Chisholm, the first Black to vie for the U.S. Presidency in a major political party (also first Democrat woman in such a race), making more of an impact in that quest than almost any except her ardent supporters ever thought she would (followed by a career into the next decade in Congress, then in academia), so for my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor I’ll turn to Gloria Gaynor’s big hit, “I Will Survive” (written by Freddie Perren, Dino Fekaris [both formerly with Motown Records], on Gaynor’s 1978 Love Tracks album) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=6dYWe1c3OyU, even though the song is specifically about a woman spurned by a lover who then wants her back, yet she’s through with his antics, rejects his overtures.
Given that when Gaynor recorded this song she was in a back brace following a 6-month-hospital-recovery from a bad fall on stage resulting in a broken spine there’s connective feeling from the singer in these lyrics just as I find connection with Chisholm in lines like “Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die? / Oh no, not I, I will survive / Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive / I’ve got all my life to live, and I’ve got all my love to give / And I’ll survive, I will survive.” This is a woman who bucked considerable hostility, even from her fans after she visited George Wallace when he was shot in 1972, demonstrating her Christian faith in forgiveness and caring for others was stronger than her political ideologies, showing an inner strength to survive all that confronted her, even if this movie presents her as always being right, at least in how she saw what decisions she felt she had to make, even causing alienation from her closest friends and family.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Some options for your consideration: (1) IMDb favorite films directed by women; (2) The New Yorker's best bio-pics ever made (I thank my friend Barry Caine for passing this info on to me).
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