Miss Sloane

MISS SLOANE

Director : John Madden
Year : 2017
Genre : Political Thriller
Rating : ***

Yet another movie that demonstrates her effortless screen charisma and power, two time Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain delivers a marvelous performance as a ruthless DC lobbyist in John Madden's wearisome political thriller 'Miss Sloane' - a film that would work brilliantly as a pilot for a high-value TV drama but one that ultimately proves to be a rather ineffectual and unremarkable experience in the multiplex. Donning thick lipstick as red as her liberal viewpoints and a steely expression as sharp as the jet black fingernails she so methodically drums on the glass-topped tables she dominates, Chastain's titular Sloane is an instantly formidable presence - a character unmoved by emotion and utterly indifferent to the many men and women who are under her perfectly manicured thumb. However, she soon finds her career and even her freedom under threat when she boldly decides to take on the influential pro-gun lobby who are fiercely campaigning to abolish background checks on firearms. 

Despite its rather heavy subject matter which has predictably angered the trigger-happy far-right, director Madden ('Shakespeare In Love') still manages to produce a very sophisticated looking movie, with cinematographer Sebastian Blenkov expertly using the beautifully polished glassy walls and many LCD screens that make up Sloane's Washington stomping grounds to wonderfully evocative and dramatic effect while the moody underscoring by composer Max Richter helps to maintain the films undeniable dramatic weight. However at 132 minutes, 'Miss Sloane' is an exceedingly hard watch. While the performances are unanimously fantastic - 'Belle's Gugu Mbatha Raw is exceptionally good here as one of Sloane's undervalued staff members - and Madden's direction is precise and evocative, the dialogue-heavy yet laboriously paced script by debut screenwriter Jonathan Perera continually manages to tie itself up in narrative knots from which it can't fully untangle itself; a problem which truly comes to light in the movies overly-complicated twisty-turny final act which plays more like 'A Few Good Men' than 'The West Wing'. Still, despite it's sometimes painfully slow pacing and it's many plot contrivances, I do recommend 'Miss Sloane' purely on the strength of Jessica Chastain's formidably icy central performance which, now in in retrospect, proves to be yet another disgraceful snub from this years award season. Seriously, with Amy Adams and now Jessica Chastain both being shunted by AMPAS, the question must be asked, what does the Academy have against redheads?