Five-and-a-half years have passed since John Stewart, one of today’s brilliant satirical voices, left the direction of “The Daily Show,” the political satire program of the Comedy Central channel. With the exception of a few guest appearances on Stephen Colbert’s night show, Stewart has disappeared from the public eye – and especially in the Trump era, the time when his voice was seemingly most needed. Last year, the second feature film Stewart wrote and directed, “Irresistable,” came out, six years after his first film as a director, “Rosewater.”
In both cases, it turned out that, unfortunately, Stuart also fell victim to the illusion that he needed to move from a position in which he really excelled to a position in which he was not so good. This week, “Irresistable” arrives on Cellcom and Partner’s VOD channels under the sad name “Seductive.”
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Steve Carl, who was revealed in Stewart’s show, plays Gary, a political adviser who still mourns his (and Hillary Clinton) loss in the 2016 election, which made him a persona non grata in the political world. When he sees a viral video in which a retired military officer (Chris Cooper) demonstrates leadership and conscience in a small town in Wisconsin, Gary takes it as a personal project and convinces him to run as the Democratic candidate in the mayoral election against the Republican mayor. The mayor, for his part, is recruiting a Republican communications consultant (Rose Byrne), who is Gary’s biggest rival.
What begins as a heartfelt Frank Capra-style tale, in which a cynic from the big city reveals the kindness of the small town, becomes Stuart’s indictment against the Democrats. It starts with Stuart blaming the 2016 Clinton campaign for not bothering to reach Wisconsin, one of the states that gave Trump the victory, because of arrogance. It goes on to say that Stuart presents his protagonist in a critical light, as one who towers over the inhabitants of Midwestern towns and ignores the fact that these are the real people of America. Finally, after most of the film goes through a frustrating phlegmatic, a plot twist is revealed that features the compulsive protagonist who recreates all the flaws and blind spots from 2016 in the current campaign as well. Stuart’s message: Democrats are disconnected and arrogant, while Republicans are busy manipulating and deceiving.
In many ways, “Irresistable” is Stuart’s “The Fox in the Chicken Coop,” which like Ephraim Kishon has gone from a polished satire to a banal example of how a representative of old, conservative politics comes to a small town and tries to turn it into a big volume. And in both cases, in the absence of good jokes and dramatic tension, the idea quickly wears itself out and viewers understand in advance where all this is going. It could have been an amusing and sharp five-minute monologue, if Stuart had stayed in the chair where he really mastered the virtuosity.
“Seductive.” An indictment like which we have already heard Photo: Busboy Productions