Jessica Chastain's media warrior takes no prisoners in 'Miss Sloane'
Lobbying, as Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain) tells us in sultry voice-over narration, "is about making sure you surprise them ... and they don't surprise you."
Them and they would be her many enemies, and in John Madden's blandly titled political drama "Miss Sloane," they greatly outnumber her friends and colleagues.
A tough, ruthless, no-prisoners media warrior, Sloane navigates the shark-infested moats of Washington, D.C., like a killer whale dressed to the tens with her pale, vampire-like face dotted by ice blue eyes and a splash of blood red on her lips.
Her aging, white male adversaries in the industry want to take her down.
Conservative politicians and the NRA want to take her out, especially after Sloane resigns from a major firm run by George Dupont (Sam Waterston), who accepts a contract to push for the pro-gun lobby.
Sloane morally objects to the deal (but does she really?) and jumps ship to join a lobbying firm run by Rodolfo Vittorio Schmidt (Mark Strong). He works for the gun-control side.
It might not be so far-fetched to view "Miss Sloane" as an unintended fantasy fulfillment for supporters of the widely disliked, gun-control presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
After all, lots of people simply hate Elizabeth Sloane, who nonetheless commands the loyalty of a small band of workers on her team. When pro-gun politicians haul her before Congress intending to grill her to professional death, the Clinton comparison leaps from the screen.
Chastain does not channel Clinton specifically but invests pugnacious energy and credible urgency into Hollywood's favorite fictional stock character, the heroic anti-establishment loner unencumbered by family members, friends, a spouse, dogs or anything else that would mandate extra characters to write for Jonathan Perera, a Brit and former attorney who wrote this screenplay while teaching elementary school in Asia.
"Miss Sloane" leans more toward a character study than a plot-driven thriller. Even so, Perera offers us no explanation about how this lobbyist evolved into a such an obsessed business android without an emotion chip.
Nonetheless, Perera builds an intricate narrative to an effectively shameless Hollywood finale foreshadowed by Sloane's opening monologue.
Even for a dedicated actor, Sloane would be a tough dramatic nut to crack without alienating audiences with her brittle, unapologetic actions, especially when she betrays a loyal team member, a gun-violence survivor (a touchingly vulnerable Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to win a TV debate.
Chastain performs the most precarious balancing act of her career so far: infusing a rigid, unlikable, self-absorbed lobbyist with just enough humanity to keep us on her side.
She makes her lobbyist way too interesting and complicated for us to simply tune out.
Under the sure direction of Madden - whose credits include "Shakespeare in Love," "Proof" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" - the entire cast ramps up their performances as well, including John Lithgow as the senator out to destroy Sloane, Jake Lacy as her country cornpone "escort," Michael Stuhlbarg as her fiercest enemy and Alison Pill as the one member of Sloane's team who opts to stay with the pro-gun lobby group. (This is no small problem as she knows how her former boss thinks and reacts.)
"You're a piece of work, Elizabeth," Rodolfo Vittorio Schmidt says.
He might as well be talking about Chastain, who pumps "Miss Sloane" with enough energy to run a nuclear power plant.
Her lobbyist operates like a human set of Russian nesting dolls: no matter how many you remove, there's always something more to be discovered underneath.
“Miss Sloane”
★ ★ ★
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Michael Stuhlbarg, Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Lacy, Alison Pill, John Lithgow, Sam Waterston
Directed by: John Madden
Other: A Europa release. Rated R for language, sexual situations. 132 minutes