Tyler: Jerry, from one impeached president to another.  Last time out, we looked at a depiction of apparent-saint Andrew Johnson; now, we leap ahead nearly 120 years to examine the 1992 primary candidacy of Bill Clinton.

Oh, forgive me, I mean “Jack Stanton,” the Clinton stand-in created for onetime literary sensation Primary Colors.  That novel, written by Joe Klein but originally published anonymously, was adapted into the film that we’re here today to discuss.

Now, I came into this one pretty skeptical.  I’d watched most of it, more than a couple of times, a very long time ago.  I enjoyed it then, but then I wasn’t much for nuance, nor reading the film with any particular depth.  My young liberal self was looking for soothing Clinton porn.

That, then, is what I expected from a viewing here in mid-2024.  We know Bill and Hillary far better now than we did thirty-odd years ago, and the star-ascendant narrative that swept them to the White House has been augmented by decades of life in the public eye, including a pair of further and failed presidential campaigns.  I have my thoughts on what they represent, which I’m sure we’ll get to here, but I can say without question that I wasn’t excited to watch something so dated and likely scandalous.

Not sure what I was thinking, since the thing was adapted by Elaine May and directed by Mike Nichols, one of the most formidable creative duos of their eras.  There is so much skill, so much talent, and so much exquisite attention to detail in this film, Primary Colors, and I am happy to eat plenty of crow today in discussing it.

Jerry, exceptional student of presidential history that you are, where were you coming from as we approached this motion picture?

Jerry: So this was actually my first time watching Primary Colors, so I went into it with no expectations. I have to say, it brought back memories of growing up in the 90s and the political landscape of the time.

As you said, Tyler, there is a very loose, paper thin attempt to conceal that it is about the Clintons, but it hearkens back to a time in their careers that it can be sometimes hard to remember given all the water that has gone under the bridge since then. However, this brings back to recollection where it all began, long before the move to Chappaqua when they were the political fresh faces from Arkansas.

Tyler: I was nine during the ’92 campaign, not of age enough to really engage with it.

Jerry: I was just a little older – I turned ten that year – but I was already a fan of presidential history, so you can bet I was paying attention to the news even though I didn’t understand all of the policy talk. Given that I grew up in Louisiana, it was exciting to have someone from my part of the country running for president again.

I think that’s the first time I got interested in learning more about Jimmy Carter, but that’s a tangent for another time. There’s more than enough to discuss with the Clintons.

Tyler: We need a Carter biopic!

Maybe an Insider-era Russell Crowe giving it a whirl.  Speaking of tangents.

Jerry: Can we have someone out there get to work on that? That needs to happen!

If they can make a movie about Andrew Johnson, they can make a movie about any president.

And they wouldn’t have to perform as many mental gymnastics to make Carter a likeable character.

Tyler: We need Clooney as Warren Harding, dammit!

Jerry: Talk about a raunchy, scandalous presidential movie – Harding would have to be rated R at least!

Tyler: That rather dovetails with one of the themes within Primary Colors that demand attention—what we are willing to accept, as human flaw, from the people we choose to lead our country.

Jerry: That is definitely a theme that this movie explores, and I think it explores it well through the eyes of Henry Burton, played by Adrian Lester. As the outsider brought in to the inner circle of the Stanton primary campaign, the audience goes along with him as he learns the ropes and becomes acquainted with the candidate, his wife, and their advisors and aides.

Tyler: I do recall Henry being likened to George Stephanopoulos, back when people were playing spot-the-stand-in.

As it stands, I agree that Lester does a very effective job as the audience surrogate.  With a murderer’s row of marquee actors exquisitely devouring scenery around him, the unknown lead makes it work.

Worth noting is that Henry is a Black man, one whose race, and privilege, are forefronted throughout the narrative.  Another of the many significant threads running through this film.

Jerry: Especially given that Clinton, er, I mean Stanton, is from Arkansas, race and socio-economics are definitely prominent themes that run through the movie, and I’m sure we’ll discuss one major plot line related to this a little further on in our discussion. 

Stanton, like Clinton, tries to use his record as governor to spur economic growth and increase funding for education as well as his folksy charm to win over voters in New Hampshire, but of course, like with Clinton, Stanton’s momentum is disrupted by scandal.

Tyler: Reasonable scandal, at that.  Stanton is a blithe lothario, thinking nothing of, say, emerging from a seemingly-ugly tryst with a young Allison Janney (!) and leaping straight into candidate mode.  Janney walks away from the scene with a harrowed look on her face, a detail that needs to happen if we really want to talk about predatory sexual behavior.

Jerry: Exactly. That scene early on lets the audience know who you’re truly dealing with with Stanton.

Side note, though the show was still a few years away in Janney’s future, I was secretly hoping she would channel CJ Cregg and just kick him in the crotch.

Gender roles and sexuality are also themes that come up throughout the film, and it was a reminder of just how different (and unfortunately in some ways, how similar) things are in the present day.

Tyler: There’s a real intimacy between these characters, too—Henry placing a hand on non-Hillary’s shoulder, or Lester, Maura Tierney, and Billy Bob Thornton all reclining on the same hotel bed.  We see how affectionate physicality can grow between people who care about one another, or how it can be used to fake that affection.  Hell, the movie begins with a breakdown of Stanton’s hand-shaking methods.

Non-Hillary, mind you, is played by gale force wind Emma Thompson.  Man, she’s great.

Jerry: That’s an interesting observation – I hadn’t thought about that, but it also speaks to accounts that I’ve heard of what it’s like being on the campaign trail. While I can’t speak to it personally, from what I’ve read and heard, it becomes an intense microcosm of society where folks do get very close, both physically and emotionally. Under constant pressure and stress, it’s understandable, and that’s definitely highlighted in this film.

And yes, the amazing Emma Thompson is one of the shining stars of this film. I’d dare to say that she outshines Travolta (John Stanton) in her performance as Susan Stanton. aka Non-Hillary.

I do have to admit though that Kathy Bates as Libby Holden was my favorite character. Not only does Kathy Bates have my heart, but her portrayal of a Southern butch lesbian political intel researcher/scandal fixer was golden.

Tyler: Oh, she’s wonderful.  Something about Kathy Bates has never quite clicked for me—it’s a personal issue, I know—but she’s so good as Libby.

I confess that I also adore Thornton as Carville clone Richard Jemmons.  He’s awful enough to whip his penis out for display to a female staffer, but nigh-redeems himself by being just so indelible.  Also, he gets the what-for from the staffer when she observes “I’ve never seen one that…old before.”

Bates and Thornton make me laugh out loud.

Jerry: I think that’s one of the most intriguing things about this film – for a movie that deals with some pretty heavy issues, it also has some wickedly humorous moments.

Tyler: Got that right.  I wouldn’t classify Primary Colors as a comedy, unlike Amazon, but it is startlingly hilarious from time to time.

Jerry: I made a few notes while I was watching it including this line that made me laugh as I reread it: “You wet fart of a human turd.” Yes, it’s crass, and yes, it’s hilarious. Also, “I am a gay lesbian woman! I do not mythologize the male sexual organ!” The hilarious one (or two) liners fit well with the overall film and add some levity in what would otherwise be a rather bleak environment.

Tyler: One line that made me guffaw was a simple Thornton reaction, when Tierney asks him and Lester with whom they should set a meeting about Stanton’s philandering.  “Him or her?” Thornton, stunned: “Shit, her!”

Shaking my head.  Somehow, despite all his horrid behavior, the worst of which we’ve yet to discuss, Stanton gets our support.  We want him to win, not only for the country, but specifically the collection of aides, advisors, and staffers that have bound together behind him.  The scene where the whole lot of them celebrate a media victory, soundtracked by Orleans’ “Still The One,” is a clear throwback to the Clintons’ use of good old “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac.  It’s also a thrilling sequence.  It’s joyous.  To the film’s immense and complicated credit, we’re in its thrall.

Now.  We must discuss the worst of the worst of Stanton’s transgressions.  And it’s bad.

Jerry: Exactly – it was bad enough in the first part, but the last half of the movie really goes off the rails in terms of just how bad Stanton is – first with Loretta then with the oppo research on his opponent, Fred Picker.

Tyler: Brass tacks, readers.  A favorite spot of the Stantons’ is a barbecue joint in their home state, run by a lovely and kind Black married couple who offer their friends—Stanton even qualifies as “a brother”—unyielding support.

Even after they learn that Stanton has seduced and possibly impregnated their 17-year-old daughter.

Jerry: And what really makes this turn tragic is that we see our stand-in for the audience, the outsider turned insider Henry Burton, starting to go towards the dark side himself.

Henry helps to convince the young girl’s father to keep the matter quiet while they do a prenatal paternity test.

Tyler: Awful.  He appropriately vomits afterward, but the damage is done.

Then, as we learn from Libby, they fake the Stanton blood sample.

Jerry: Which comes up in the aftermath of the opposition research on Stanton’s opponent, Fred Picker, who, despite his wholesome image, Henry and Libby learn had a cocaine addition while serving as governor of Florida back in the day as well as an affair with his male cocaine supplier. When they share the information with the Stantons, they are shocked to find that both Jack and Susan are fine with leaking it to the press.

Tyler: They’ve sold their souls, or at least drawn up the paperwork.

Jerry: And then. Poor Libby…

Tyler: So little screen time, and yet a death that resonates so deeply.

Jerry: It reflects for the audience that the decisions and actions of the Stantons have significant impacts on individuals.

Tyler: I do wonder, then, how genuine is the sorrow in Stanton’s eulogy.  He’s a master manipulator, and seemingly almost always knows exactly what to say.

Jerry: And, honestly, that is the darker side of a good politician. While we always hope that politicians will use their abilities for good causes and to help the people, those same talents can also be used for manipulation and personal benefit. And that’s a human trait. As someone who has studied tools for self-assessment such as the Enneagram, Clifton Strengths, and the Actualized Leader Profile over the years, you quickly learn that, for any of us, a strength can also be a detriment when one operates in the shadow.

Tyler: That shadow can be witnessed in a scene I’d like to highlight.  While the team is dealing with a major crisis involving Jack’s relationship with Susan’s hairdresser, Henry looks across a parking lot, catching sight of Jack sitting at the counter of a Krispy Kreme, talking quietly with the store’s night worker.

Now, the first shot of the donut shop no doubt led to a chuckle when the film was released.  Clinton’s seeming gluttony was a sore spot, poked at most notably by Phil Hartman on SNL.  That initial amusement, though, gives way to perhaps the film’s iconic scene.

Henry enters the Krispy Kreme, encouraging Stanton to leave and get some sleep.  The attendant, a gentle character who offers a rude Henry apple fritters, connects with Stanton, who evinces a real empathy for the attendant’s lot in life—bad leg thanks to no insurance, seven-days-a-week night shifts.  Stanton talks football with the guy, bullshitting an observation about a certain college upset as a “great ground game.”  It works, and the attendant feels validated.

Now, if Henry was there the whole time, we might be able to dismiss Stanton’s entire act as affectation.   But he’s there on his own, huge campaign issue hanging over his head, just to have a snack and chat with a certified Real American Human Citizen.  Is his interest in the common person then real?

This is then compounded by some crocodile tears Stanton throws at Henry about Stanton’s mistakes leading to this latest scandal.  I don’t buy them, even as I believe Henry’s softly encouraging talk of the people, “the folks.”  That revs Jack back up.  Henry’s all-in.  What a scene.

Jerry: That was a very powerful scene, and it gets to one of the key questions which I think remains unanswered in the movie as well as for many folks who study the Clintons – where is the line between what is real and what is playing the game? I’d add to that a subquestion  – is there really a firm line, or could it occasionally be both at the same time?

If nothing else, this film asks us to consider the complexity of the human condition and the human psyche – the good, the bad, and all of the gray area in between.

Tyler: Not to mention our frequent tendency to hope that only the good exists.  Henry’s a True Believer, as at least one character jibes.  Maybe Jack’s for real.  I think we know whether that’s the case.

At the very end, after Jack and Susan waltz their way through the inaugural ball, Jack works a handshake line of close staffers and aides.  He gets to Henry, but, in a strange and intriguing twist, we only see, we do not hear, his delivery of Primary Colors’ final line.

“Mr. President.”

Jerry: What a powerful ending.

Tyler: Agreed.  A fitting, deft conclusion to a true cinematic achievement.

Jerry: And it’s funny that it was considered a box office bomb back in the day. With a $65 million budget, it only earned $52 million at the box office.

I would argue, however, that it was worth a watch for anyone interested in movies about political intrigue or American politics in the 1990s.

I enjoyed my first viewing of it, and it’s one that I could see myself watching again in the future.

Tyler: It’s a time capsule, that’s for sure.  I had to correct my mind when Jack throws the cell phone out the window of their moving car.  “Why can’t they use Henry’s?”, I thought. “Oh, wait.”  The ‘90s!

Jerry: Those little details help to transport us back to the times that were.

Also, I do have to say, haven’t we all had a time where we fantasized about throwing our cell phone out of a moving car or into the ocean or off a cliff? Unfortunately, then we remember that we’d actually have to replace it because almost nobody has a land line anymore. But I digress…

Tyler: I would return to this one, too, if it was available and the time was right.  I’d certainly recommend it to loved ones.

Jerry: I’ll be honest. I’m a sucker for political drama (with comedy mixed in) based in the 90s like The American President from 1995 and the aforementioned The West Wing (I’d vote for Jeb Bartlett any day of the week). This is definitely going on my rewatch rotation.

I hope the readers enjoy this movie as much as we did, and if you’d like to learn more about 90s political drama (1790s, that is), they can check out my podcast, The Presidencies of the United States, where we’re going through each of the presidencies and examining the characters and events that shaped and reshaped each term of office and the presidency in general. The podcast is available wherever fine podcasts can be found as well as on YouTube. Tyler, as always, thank you so much for a wonderful conversation!

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