Andrew here. I could not let the celebration of 1995, which ends with tomorrow's Smackdown, pass without singling out one of the most important performances of the year from my favourite actress.
The American President represents a key moment in my Bening love affair because this – her tenth film after seven years in the business – represents my first meeting with her, and it was obsession at first sight. But enough about me. This mostly forgotten gem allows Annette to perform in a cadence that she's been rarely allowed to show her abilities - Annette Bening, at 37 years old, the best romantic comedy heroine of the 90s...
The American President persists in history as a mere footnote in Aaron Sorkin’s career, a preface to The West Wing with its focus on a Democratic White House. The plot runs thus: popular Democratic President Andrew Shepherd is running for re-election and is being lobbied by an environmental form trying to get the president to pass a bill reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Sydney Ellen Wade is a new hire at this firm and is all too pleased to show her tenacity by blazing the administration for its ineffectiveness in the area.
Annette's first main scene is a quasi-monologue where she shows here gumption, castigating the president for his weak stance on the environment. It's a moment she plays wonderfully descending into comedic hijinks when the President makes his way into the room overhearing her attack on him.
Of course he is immediately charmed her. Of course, they fall in love. Of course their courtship is hampered by his presidency / her lobbying job. There are betrayals and mistakes (mostly from him), and forgiveness and allowances (mostly from her). Everything ends happily, mostly. The particulars of the plot are incidental. Like any romantic comedy The American President depends on the how and the cadence of the cast.
It’s a trifle, but it’s an intelligent one with an actual pulse telling a story between two adults that’s without sentiment. It's not the film's White House antics which represent its best asset, or Michael Douglas' eponymous president; The American President depends on Bening who turns a good film into something special.
Bening's star turn must convince us that Sydney would allow her pragmatic self to be wooed by the President, that she sincerely expects him to be fully honest with her, and that she would even consider compromising her staunch environmentalist position for him. It's a difficult line to toe but one which she manages with aplomb. To say that Bening lights up in the screen in The American President may seem trite, but that does not make it any less true.
In a way that's an unusual thing because, other than the film's most memorable image of Bening and Douglas dancing, Sydney Ellen Wade does not have the traditional glamorous moments you might associate with a romantic comedy lead in the nineties. Sydney demands a warmness and spontaneity of thought and action that Bening excels in.
How rarely do we get a chance to see this side of her? When has Annette really been allowed to be this warm since? Ruby Sparks, I suppose, playing a riff on the earth mother trope. Otherwise I can think of none. Perhaps it’s a conscious decision on her part? I think of it as the Carolyn Burnham effect where Bening’s persona has been inextricably tied to a specific kind of steely woman since. To be fair, she also excels at that.
Sydney Ellen Wade is not her best work, but its a treasure for her luminosity in a different register. It’s why, even as The American President congeals into something pleasant but not especially moving I keep returning to Bening’s performance when I think of excellent romantic comedic ladies.