Movie Blog Post: MISS SLOANE

D.C. WONDER WOMAN Jessica Chastain in MISS SLOANE

by Tinsel & Tine Editor, Le Anne Lindsay

We’re just days away from the Golden Globe nominations, and I’ve always held a high regard for Jessica Chastain since she came on the scene with back to back movies in 2011/2012 – still, for some reason, I assumed Miss Sloane, wouldn’t be a very remarkable movie, figured I’d see it cause I have to see something every week to talk about on my radio segment with Chuck Darrow, but not because I needed or wanted to see it to get prepared for awards season. I was wrong, John Madden (The Debt, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel click for T&T posts) has directed a strong political thriller with some very timely themes.

Chastain plays a motivated, hard-driving, extremely intelligent, in demand Washington, D.C. Lobbyist who can inspire a loyal team around her, yet she plays her cards so close to the vest in order to achieve certain outcomes, that it often leads to those around her feeling manipulated. Particularly, Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, an actress I really like – Belle, Beyond the Lights, Jupiter Ascending, Concussion, Free State of Jones click for T&T posts) another female Lobbyist with a long track record in the fight for Gun Control; a cause Sloane takes on not because she’s passionate about the issue, but wants the challenge of going up against the antiquated, right wing, 2nd Amendment Nazis.

Sloane is always impeccably put together, but she’s flawed: can’t sleep, pops pills, pushes herself too the limit, expects too much from those around her and pays for sex (Jake Lacy), but you love her cause she’s brilliant. We don’t have to wait until June to see a Wonder Woman movie, Jessica Chastain as Miss Elizabeth Sloane will leave you in awe!

What type of research did you do to tap into your characters, and also the gun lobby conversation?

Chastain: Less than 10% of lobbyists in D.C. are women — politics in D.C. can be very much a boys club. So, for me, it was important to meet with female lobbyists because I wanted to know what they go through day-to-day in that town, and in that political system, to get where they are. But first I read Jack Abramoff’s book, [“Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist”] — the lobbyist that ended up in jail — because I wanted to understand even what a lobbyist was. Then I Googled and found all these lists of the most successful female lobbyists and just started calling their offices. I got 11 women to agree to meet with me.

Mbatha-Raw: As well as us meeting in D.C. and getting to go to Capitol Hill, I got to visit the lobbying firm that were the consultants for the movie. I also got to meet with leading members of the Brady Campaign [to Prevent Gun Violence] and also a young woman whose mother survived [the] Sandy Hook [shooting], and talk to her about how that had motivated her to become involved in politics and in gun violence prevention… READ MORE
Tre’vell Anderson Los Angeles Times

Below is an excerpt of an article published in Elle Magazine April 2016 naming the 10 most powerful women in our Nation’s Capitol, in celebration of “nasty women”, a term appropriated from the way Trump meant it against Hillary Clinton, and now taken to mean a woman who can get things done!

1. During Loretta Lynch’s lengthy, politically contentious confirmation period to become attorney general, she personally met with every member of the Senate judiciary committee, plus more than half of the rest of the senators, including those who vociferously objected to her nomination….

2. Janet Murguía, head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization, likes to call herself the underachiever of her family: Her twin sister Mary and brother Carlos are federal judges…

3. When former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at a meet and greet near Tucson five years ago, her attacker not only failed to kill her, he also gave her a fiercer will to live. “I wake up every day grateful that I have a second chance at life and a second chance at service…

4. When Hillary Clinton was preparing to give testimony before the House committee investigating the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, she got inspiration from Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood who’d been grilled just weeks before by Republicans in Congress…

5. By 2010, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington’s Fifth District and the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House, had given birth to two children while serving in Congress…

6. Republican pollster and pundit Kristen Soltis Anderson. Way back in 2008 when the GOP lost to Obama, Soltis Anderson, a grad student at the time, noticed something: All of her friends thought being a Republican was lame. She wrote her thesis about millennial voters…

7. Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation and chairman of the National
Geographic Society, says she’s always had an interest in “leveling the
playing field.”…

8. In one week last October, Karen Dunn, partner at the DC law firm Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, scored a huge win in court for tech giant Oracle, traveled with Hillary Clinton to prep her for the first primary debate, and accompanied Clinton aide Huma Abedin to testify before the House Benghazi committee—all while eight months pregnant with her third child…

9. Gina Adams, is a skillful, power Lobbyist. Lobbyists have to
be “someone people like and will listen to,” says Debra Lee, CEO of BET
and president of the Alvin Ailey board. “Adams has that ability to
develop great relationships with people on the Hill.” In fact, Adams’s
impact stretches beyond DC…

10. Lisa Monaco’s job is to manage our country’s response to everything that keeps you up at night: the Islamic State, mass shootings, Ebola, natural disasters. With a to-do list like that, it’s no surprise Monaco, 48, is one of the first people into the White House every day and one of the last to leave at night…

READ MORE Rachael Combe Elle Magazine

T & T’s LAMB (movie bloggers association) Score: 4 outta 5

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