Oh No, Poor Joe

The 1990s were a time of hopeful optimism for political media in Hollywood. We’ve covered a couple of the works of this era, from The American President in 1995, to the start of The West Wing in 1999. There was a thought that with the right party in charge (generally the Democrats), things could become better for the American people. People were looking for support, they were looking for change. Hell, just a few years later Obama tapped into that same energy and was elected on a platform of hope. “Yes We Can.” It felt right.

I don’t know that you could make a show as earnest as The West Wing or a movie like The American President now without it being laughed at. “Politicians aren’t like that,” people would say, and all they’d need to do is point to Trump, and the Republicans, and their toxic style of governing, and you’d think the version of politics was saw in films and shows back in the 1990s was a fantasy, something only glimpsed on TV and never actually seen for real. “There’s no way we could ever have leadership like that,” people would say, and sometimes it does feel like that’s true now. At least from one side of the aisle.

There was another movie from that era that had that same thread of hope running through it, the idea that you could make things better for the American people if you just tried. And it did it while also looking head on at that cynicism of the political factions. It acknowledged it, built its plot around it, and still found a way to try and give the viewers a little inspiration in the process. “Not every politician has to be this way,” it seemed to say. “All you need is someone with enough heart to actually turn things around. At least for a little while.” The film was Dave, a movie with a goofy enough premise, but one that also had all the heart it needed. The film isn’t discussed as much now as it used to be, but it’s still another solid political film that is worth revisiting in these harder, more trying political times.

In the film, Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline) is the owner and operator of a temp agency. He’s also a dead ringer for the current president, William Harrison Mitchell (also Kline), which Dave is able to use to do comedic impersonation appearances as the president. When Mitchell is arranged to give a speech one night, Dave is brought in to do the walk at the end after, allowing the president to slip away for an “important meeting” – aka, a romantic tryst with a presidential aide, Randi (Laura Linney). Dave does a great job, exiting the hotel with style (even getting a little swept up in the moment), and it seems that’s the end of it… at least until the president suffers a massive stroke in the middle of said tryst and is left a vegetable.

Suddenly the limo turns around and Dave is taken to the White House where, at the arrangement of presidential advisors Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) and Alan Reed (Kevin Dunn), Dave is set up to be the president. At least for a little while. You know, until the end of the term so that Mitchell’s policies can be carried out. Except, the two advisors can’t control everything and eventually the First Lady, Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver), quickly figures out that the president isn’t really the president. And though she was inclined to rat out the arrangement, she realizes that Dave is actually a good person (unlike her literally brain-dead spouse) and he might just be able to do some good in the office. And that’s when Dave goes off book and starts being, well, Dave.

Dave is a fun movie, through and through. While its premise is silly – finding a perfect copy of someone isn’t easy, and it would be impossible to train them to be the president and not have anyone find out – the film gets by on good vibes, good energy, and a script that moves at a very quick pace. The film is structured in basically three acts and each gives Dave a complete part of his journey. We spend the first act learning about Dave, the Democrat with a heart of gold trying to get everyone a job. Then he becomes the President by a fluke and the second act is all about him learning to fill the role and not make waves. Once the First Lady figures out the deal, though, we shift into the last act where Dave then starts acting like the President on his terms and discovers he has a knack for politics. It’s a solid structure and it keeps the film from ever getting stale or repetitive.

Benefitting that, of course, is the solid cast in the film. Kline is great in the double role as both Dave and Mitchell. He’s solid as President Mitchell, the smug prig that thinks the American people are beneath him, but he’s even better as Dave. There’s a lightness, an earnestness to the performance, making Dave every inch a bleeding-heart liberal but one that’s hard to hate (not that I, a dyed in the wool Ultra-Liberal, would ever hate him). There are few people that could have pulled off all the aspects of Dave – the earnestness, the goofiness, and comedy – but Kline was the right man for the role at the time.

He’s helped by Signourney Weaver, of course. She’s fantastic as the woman that absolutely hates her husband for half the film, only to then learn that the man she’s with now is someone completely new, someone she can stand and even enjoy being around. There’s palpable chemistry between the two of them, that just oozes from both of them in every scene once she learns who he really is. Dave becomes a love story at that point, and it works so well because Kline and Waver have absolutely no problem selling it at all. It comes easy for them.

Of course, part of the fun as well is in seeing Dave, given the power of the office, actually do something with it. People dream about what they could do as the President of the United States (if, you know, there was a functioning government that actually let them put forth ideas and have those become laws, which right now feels like the real fantasy). Given a chance, Dave does what he’s good at: starting a program to give every person that wants one a job. To find a way to truly eliminate unemployment. Dave, from his experience we see at the start of the movie, knows how to do this, and this is what motivates him. Hell, there are a few times during the film where he’s motivated to get something done (like save a homeless shelter) and he does, and the film gets such great energy from it. It’s hope, and aspiration, and Dave has that in spades.

That earnestness is sorely needed now. You look around and it’s hard to think that a character like Dave could exist in current Hollywood. He’s of a different time, a descendant from characters like the titular lead in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a character that looked ahead to The West Wing. He’s a guy politicians (at least on one side of the aisle) say they want to be like, the person there to really lead and make change, but so few actually do the job. In reality it’s hard to find a politician that can make waves and get things done, but we all hope someone like Dave will come along, maybe someday.

So while a certain party seems to want to sow nothing but chaos, to say “no” to everything and watch the whole government burn, it’s not a bad time to pop in Dave and think about a different kind of politician. Maybe a little hope can help get us through trying times when a former president wants to become the President again via fear and hate and lies. There is a right and a wrong and, at least in 1993, Dave helped show us some of that right in a sea of wrong. That’s not bad at all.