The Front Runner

I was 11 when the Presidential campaign of 1988 happened. I'd been watching R-rated movies for years, so watching the news wasn't really out of bounds, although I wasn't fully tuned in yet. I remember hearing bits and pieces about Gary Hart and Donna Rice, and I remembered the name of the boat they were seen on together, and I know the affair ended his campaign. but the details were lost on me at the time, and I've only picked up bits and pieces since then. It's not exactly a story that maintains a presence, you know? After watching The Front Runner, I think it should. Seeing how the media handled the Hart/Rice story, and how Hart handled the Hart/Rice story, explains so much about where we are today. That's because The Front Runner doesn't look to conduct a postmortem on history or its actors, and it doesn't presume to answer questions. In fact, this seems to be a major criticism of the movie, and I think it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the movie. The Front Runner threads a fine needle in documenting (and I'm sure dramatizing to a degree) the rise and fall of Hart. It presents Hart as a flawed human being; an idealist to the point of naivete, a man with genuine love for his family but lust in his heart. When he is confronted with the story breaking, he simply cannot understand how it is relevant to a political campaign. He firmly believes his message, his plans, and his promises are all anybody should be concerned with, and is unwilling to compromise those values, even as he was willing to compromise his marriage. In an era where televangelists were getting torn down with scandal and morality played such a big role in politics that there was literally a lobbying group called The Moral Majority, he cannot accept the possibility that the public might be interested in the personal life -- and the moral questions said personal life raises -- of a candidate for office. At the same time, it walks a delicate tightrope portraying the media. Institutions like The Washington Post showed discretion in reporting on the situation, with editors openly talking about how many members of Congress were cheating, and past Presidents doing the same, and that the press always buried it. But then the Miami Herald runs with the story with minimal vetting and some (correct) assumptions, and suddenly, we're off to the races. The door has been kicked open. Politicians and their personal lives are now fair game. But in the race to be first, and willing to report on salacious rumors that seem more like tabloid fodder, they risk lowering their own standards and the standards of journalism as a whole. The Front Runner poses a lot of questions. The one thing it does not even pretend to do, the one thing I have seen many people complain, is that it doesn't provide answers. The thing I think most people don't get is that The Front Runner is not foolish enough to believe there ARE answers. Questions about the media's role in covering candidates, the rush to break a story, the belief that issues and positions should matter more than anything else, these and more are thorny and complex. You ask ten people for their feelings on the questions this movie asks, and you'll get ten different answers. If you're looking to a movie like this to have the answers, you're not disappointed because the movie doesn't have them; you're disappointed because you're a shallow, self-centered buffoon who wants their own opinions reflected back at you. Sometimes, movies are a little deeper than that. Sometimes, it's about covering all the angles and trusting that the audience has the wherewithal -- and the courage -- to do a little self-examination and come to their own conclusions. And that's what I appreciate most about The Front Runner: it has no intention whatsoever of making up your mind for you. It presents the arguments for and against every question it raises, gives them to the viewer, and presumes said viewer can and will do what they want with it. By no means, though, is it a perfect movie. Donna Rice is not presented in the best light here; she's portrayed as some kind of young innocent who got swept up in the moment, instead of a 30-year-old career woman who had agency and made choices. The movie also drops her completely at a certain point, and provides no follow-up, which seems like a huge oversight. Bill Dixon, Hart's campaign manager, also vanishes from the narrative at a certain point. Reporter AJ Parker is hesitant to ask personal questions, wanting to be what he views as a responsible journalist, until he isn't. All of these little things add up to show that, while The Front Runner does indeed pose some provocative concepts, it also attempts to spin far too many plates. Hell, at no point does the movie even mention the infamous picture where Rice is sitting on Hart's lap. Flaws aside, I do think it is a far better movie than people give it credit for. If you're looking for a movie to spoon-feed you ideas, or provide simplistic answers to complex questions, you're barking up the wrong tree. Go watch cable news for that. The Front Runner is a little more than that. No, it's a lot more than that. It asks a lot of the audience, with one question perhaps more important than any other: given the state of politics and media now, and how you can draw a straight line from now to this moment ... has it been worth it?