'Miss Sloane'

In cinemas May 12th!

A female led, high stakes political drama could be just the thing to make some waves in the Trump era. Particularly when the focus point is gun control. Unfortunately 'Miss Sloane' hits just wide of the mark.

Jessica Chastain plays the titular character, a strong, ruthless lobbyist in the world of Washington DC. Making a move against her previous employer by supporting a campaign to run background checks for buying firearms. Chastain has previously shown she is well capable of playing these spiky, strong willed characters. Capable of verbally going toe to toe with anyone. She is in fine form here once again, believably obsessive, smart and dominant. The supporting cast, including Mark Strong are also solid.

We come into the film with Miss Sloane defending herself in a court hearing. Seamlessly going back and forth in the timeline to show us what brought Sloane to this point. However where things start to work less well is with the script. Though it isn’t all bad, while being a very dialogue driven film, the verbal back and forth battles prevent that from dragging the film down and makes it feel pacier than its long run time could feel like. But where it falls down is the characters. They just don’t feel like real people. With Sloane being the worst culprit, as good as Chastain’s performance is, the character comes across as too competent. Even the flaws that are highlighted don’t really have the impact that they should. The biggest issue however, is that ultimately her motivations don’t really make any sense. Even as we learn more about her this becomes even more problematic as the reasons behind her choices become more and more murky and this is never resolved.

The subject of gun control is obviously very relevant to the current climate. In the opening moments, Sloane tells the audience about how important it is for a lobbyist “To anticipate your opponent’s moves and devising countermeasures.” The film echoes this by shying away from the politics of the subject itself, and moving the focus on winning the battle to win the campaign, interestingly mirroring modern day politics. We see very few valid arguments from either side. The ugly realities of what gun regulations (or lack of) mean for some Americans is never presented. Instead, things are discussed from the comfort of modern offices. This does allow some interesting ideas to present themselves, do the ends justify the means? Is winning more important than doing the right thing? When is it okay to break the rules to do the right thing?

In the final act is when the films faces its biggest problems. The moral ambiguity that fuelled much of the interesting conflict is abandoned. Instead the plot is reliant on making twists and turns, which haven’t been earned and end up feeling unsatisfying and borderline silly, with muddy motivations being at the core of the problem. In the end 'Miss Sloane' offers some interesting ideas and engaging moments, but ultimately feels falls well short of its full potential.

Review by Chris Smallwood.

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