Escaping life on a Georgia plantation, Cecil Gaines (Forest Whittaker) flees north and becomes a domestic servant. In 1957 he's hired by the White House maitre'd (Colman Domingo) as a Presidential butler. Cecil gets an inside view of Presidential hand-ringing over Civil Rights: Dwight Eisenhower's (Robin Williams) reluctant desegregation, John F. Kennedy (James Marsden) and Lyndon Johnson's (Liev Schreiber) idealism, Richard Nixon's (John Cusack) war on black subversives and Ronald Reagan's (Alan Rickman) incomprehension. Through it all he's expected to remain impassive and resolutely professional.
Cecil's high position conflicts with his home life. His marriage with Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) suffers, to the point that she has a fling with neighbor Howard (Terrence Howard). Son Lewis (David Oyelowo) goes to Fisk University, where he joins an underground Black Power movement that leads him to sit-ins, Freedom Rides and ultimately the Black Panthers. Younger son Charlie (Elijah Kelley) follows Cecil's commitment to service by enlisting in the Army. Cecil and Lewis go years without speaking to each other, reconciling only when Cecil's ready to call it quits.
First off, The Butler is (by its leads, anyway) exceedingly well-acted. Forest Whittaker gives a performance of masterful subtlety. He shows Cecil wrestling with contempt and bafflement at Presidential indecision, his subservient attitude an anguished necessity. Oprah Winfrey's deservedly generated Oscar buzz: she impresses by not trying to dominate the film, matching Whittaker with low-key anguish. David Oyelowo navigates Lewis's difficult character arc: young idealist, punk radical, disillusioned adult. Cuba Gooding Jr., Lenny Kravitz, Terrence Howard and Colman Domingo offer graceful supporting turns. The personal scenes border on melodrama but work well-enough with these capable actors.
Butler mixes the worm's-eye perspective of Backstairs at the White House with Forrest Gump's historic sightseeing. Daniels stages moments of frightful Jim Crow bigotry: Lewis and girlfriend Carol (Yaya DaCosta) get beaten at a lunch counter sit-in, and later survive a KKK firebombing. The movie also works in less obvious moments, as when an argument over Sidney Poitier shows a deep generational divide. Daniels plays to both sides of the racial argument: Lewis's principled (if extreme) in his beliefs, but he'd be nowhere with Cecil's hard work. It's a conciliatory treatment of a difficult topic.
Yet Butler falls victim to a common malady of historical dramas. By covering so much ground, it reduces history to a greatest hits collection of cliches and buzzwords. Of course we meet Lyndon Johnson taking a dump while yanking on his beagle's ear! Vietnam's relegated to montages of well-worn archival footage. Even the conflict between Black Panther Lewis and Vietnam-bound Charlie seems forced. Daniels' simplistic rendering of these issues culminates with Cecil waiting to meet Barack Obama, whose worshipful treatment seems at least three years out of date.
Butler's stunt casting proves its most egregious blunder. Aside from James Marsden's respectable Jack Kennedy, none of the Presidents transcend caricature. Robin Williams more strongly recalls Truman than Ike. Liev Scheiber's LBJ emphasizes Johnson's boorishness over his Civil Rights achievements. John Cusack resembles Tricky Dick even less than Anthony Hopkins. Alan Rickman plays a mumbling, scatterbrained Reagan, while Jane Fonda's Nancy seems unaccountably pleasant. Nelsan Ellis plays Martin Luther King as wax dummy. Walk-ons by Minka Kelly, Vanessa Redgrave, Alex Pettyfer and Mariah Carey add to the fun.
Maybe The Butler is a sign that Hollywood's more willing to tackle history from a black perspective. With 12 Years a Slave and a Nelson Mandela biopic coming soon, we'll have opportunity to test this thesis. On its own terms though, The Butler is well-intentioned, but a qualified success.
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