Lee Daniels’ The Butler succeeds in spite of itself

Meet Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), the star of Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Cecil grew up in the South, working on a cotton plantation with his parents. The owner (played by Vanessa Redgrave) has a son, Thomas (Alex Pettyfer), who brutalizes Cecil’s mother Hattie (Mariah Carey in an unglamorous, wordless cameo) and shoots Cecil’s father in the head after he dares approach Thomas after he rapes Hattie. Cecil is brought into the house and taught the ways of being a good “house n—–” which he carries with him into adulthood. Working in various restaurants and hotels, he is spotted by R.D. Warner who notes Cecil’s apolitical response to a patron who asks him about desegregation. Warner oversees the staff at the White House, and Cecil is given a job as a butler specifically because of his discretion.

But The Butler isn’t just about the life of Cecil Gaines (based on the real life of Eugene Allen). It’s also the story of the Civil Rights movement in America which had begun to really simmer in the 50s during the Eisenhower administration. Where Cecil’s story is ultimately uplifting, it’s almost a bit too movie-of-the-week trite as it becomes overshadowed by the more harrowing aspects of America’s racist history. Cecil’s oldest son Louis (David Oyelowo) decides that he needs to be a part of the movement, partly because it’s something his parents have tried to protect him from and partly because he’s ashamed of his father’s occupation (associating him with Sidney Poitier, whom he refers to as a “rich Uncle Tom”). Through Louis’ eyes we see key moments like the fire-bombing of a Freedom Riders bus.

One of the most harrowing scenes in the film takes place at a diner where Louis and his “Love” group from college stage a sit-in at the Whites Only counter. The group, with black and white members, have been preparing themselves for this moment and it plays out almost exactly as they had practiced. After refusing to leave the area, a group of locals take it upon themselves to remove the protesters by any means necessary, including verbal and physical abuse. It’s a terrifying, thought-provoking, heart-wrenching moment and probably one of the film’s most powerful segments, especially as Daniels weaves actual archival film footage and photographs into his recreation of the incident (as he also does with the bus bombing and other key moments in the movement’s history).

While I enjoyed Cecil’s story, and the performances of Whitaker (an almost sure Oscar contender) and Oprah Winfrey as his wife (another possible nominee), his story almost takes a back seat to the really important historical aspects of the film. With these vignettes, Daniels shows that perhaps he really should make a true historical epic about the Civil Rights movement to remind people today what that time was like as we seem to be slowly slipping backwards to that era.

Cecil’s story also gets a little overshadowed by the unending stream of the stunt casting of the presidents: Robin Williams as Eisenhower, James Marsden doing his best Kennedy impression (with Minka Kelly as Jackie), Liev Schrieber as Johnson, John Cusack and a crazy nose as Nixon, Alan Rickman doing an eerie Reagan impersonation, and an ironic Jane Fonda as Nancy. Ford and Carter appear as themselves in archival footage. The White House staff is populated with the familiar faces of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz, and Cecil’s personal life includes Clarence Williams III and Terrence Howard. Sometimes it becomes a little too much, and you just want the story to be able to tell itself without wondering what famous face is going to pop up next.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler could have been a great film if it hadn’t been for all the stunt casting (perhaps necessary to secure funding), but as it is, the film succeeds mainly because of the terrific performances from Whitaker and Winfrey, and Daniels’ skill at making a very dark period of American history inspiring. People today like to think racism was erased by the success of the Civil Rights movement, but it’s not too hard to see how things are regressing in today’s culture. Movie-goers may be planning to see the story of a man who worked for eight different presidents (or just Oprah), but they’ll hopefully come out with a stronger idea of what people had to do, and may still have to do today, to achieve equality and acceptance in society.