I feel there was something in her past that contributed to her feelings about this particular issue, perhaps related to her mother. She hints at it a few times but lacks the courage to acknowledge it as Esme eventually does. Whatever it was, it forced her to "grow up lying" and unable to foster personal relationships. Thoughts? Overall an EXCELLENt film IMHO.
shareI actually disagree, I believed it when she said that she believed in gun control because of common sense. I actually like that because it showed her and Esme as two passionate people with different motivations.
Like there are definitely people like Esme who become passionate about it for personal reasons but there are also people like Sloane who believe in it for practical reasons (she also admitted part of the reason she was willing to take on the project was for the thrill of winning what everyone thought was unwinnable).
I like the differences between Esme and Elizabeth as well, and yes, Elizabeth did admit to enjoying the challenge of winning the unwinnable. However, I think the situation runs deeper for her. She appears to me to be someone suffering from something akin to PTSD- under a doctor's care- a doctor who seems concerned enough about Elizabeth to call her at home-, she cannot sleep, needs to be in control of absolutely every detail and seems derailed by a surprise or change, such as Ford waiting for her instead of Mark. If she were simply in things for the win and had no emotions invested at all, she couldn't be riled so easily. Yet she is- once in the courtroom, once on TV, once with Ford, and at the mention of her mother calling her Madeline. She seems unwilling to start feeling as if she knows she can't stop once she does. Then there is the fact that she was willing to sacrifice herself- her very freedom, for this issue. not just to win but to make a difference. She couldn't own her emotions as Esme did but she could take action the only way she knew how. One doesn't go to jail over a "common sense" cause that seems to be out of reach. Just a thought!
shareIf she were simply in things for the win and had no emotions invested at all, she couldn't be riled so easily. Yet she is- once in the courtroom, once on TV, once with Ford, and at the mention of her mother calling her Madeline. She seems unwilling to start feeling as if she knows she can't stop once she does. Then there is the fact that she was willing to sacrifice herself- her very freedom, for this issue. not just to win but to make a difference. She couldn't own her emotions as Esme did but she could take action the only way she knew how. One doesn't go to jail over a "common sense" cause that seems to be out of reach. Just a thought!
(she also admitted part of the reason she was willing to take on the project was for the thrill of winning what everyone thought was unwinnable)
It was Sloane. In the room with Mark Strong's character someone says "it would take" and she says "an earthquake".
shareI agree, Elizabeth does not have a past riddled with gun violence. This is more or less proven because, as a public figure, she would not have been able to hide it. Esme was not a public figure or known to Washington elites, the press or the public until Elizabeth made it known.
If you noticed, both people that ask Liz if she has a history of gun violence were men- men that believed that Liz, a woman (that had not been swayed by taking on a cause or client because it was the right thing to do) was all of a sudden making a change, jumping ship and supporting an unwinnable cause. The only possible conclusion those MEN can come up with is that it must be Liz's emotions (which have always been seen as a female flaw or failing or a trait that holds women back). The move is uncharacteristic of her and so they assume her emotions are getting the better of her.
It's easy in this kind of picture to get caught up in the red herrings- and this was definitely one of them. However, we would have known if Liz had a history with gun violence.
The entire plan was set up from the moment Bill Sanford set foot in Dupont's office. Liz is an addict, deeply unhappy and will end up killing herself for her career if she continues. On some level, she recognizes that she needs out and this is what she comes up with, while also taking down the institution (Washington politics) that made her into what she is. Though, she clearly struggles through the entire movie on whether or not she should go through with it in the end. In fact she almost doesn't. But, she does and it seems like jail was the best thing for her. She comes out in that last scene and she has a new start.
Elizabeth is the kind of woman who would never reveal her life history to anyone. She has no personal relationships - only business. It's just the woman she's become, for better or worse. She's clearly utilitarian - she eats at the same restaurant every night out of necessity for fuel, she sees relationships as resources in service to her goal to do her job, she doesn't sleep so she can spend more time being useful. There's lots of subtle, efficient breadcrumbs the writer used to tell us more about Liz.
She won't apologize for it nor be shamed by it. There are those moments of vulnerability, as her "granite wall", as she put it, starts to erode over the course of this harrowing campaign. Some people expect a character in a movie to have their backstory shown (like in character-revealing flashbacks) or the character openly talks about their history. That would be a disservice to Liz's character and not be consistent with the focus and language of the film.
Liz does grow and change over the course of the film. She is more a woman of action than overt emotion. I do believe that is a person of principle but that duty is to the winning for a cause she believes in and she doesn't fret about the means (as she states to Rodolpho). She is clearly at a state of burnout at this point in her career - she's 40 years old, working herself into an early grave (stated by her doctor), she has no family or friends, and she's starting to feel the corruptive nature of this town and her own tactics weighing deeply on her conscience. It is kind of like PTSD. And furthermore, she's an obsessive. A control-freak. She's addicted to her job because she's naturally skilled at it (seemingly because she grew up lying so she built the necessary contextual skills of the trade at a seminal point in her development). Now Liz is at a point of crisis in her life - can she keep this up or must she do something extreme in order to break free of this addiction to this world she's obsessed with? She knows it's become unhealthy and she knows that even though she's a conviction-lobbyist, she isn't motivated by her emotion connection to the cause as much as she is by winning. And she knows that's not the right reasons to do this job anymore - but that's who she's become.
So she sees this fight against the gun lobby as a potential last hurrah - she knows it's the biggest fight of her career and no one has ever accomplished it. That enthralls her. But underneath that, she knows her opponents with go to any lengths to defeat the bill - and since she's so good at what she does, she sense she will run them close and likely be targeted herself for a takedown. And she sees that takedown as a way for her to do what needs to be done for the bill and herself - if it comes to the nuclear option of her long con (her Kamikazi tactic, per se), she can use the national platform to draw attention to the misdeeds employed by her and her opponents, toxifying the gun lobby for their misappropriation of government funds and resources, and make it impossible for congress to side with the gun lobby. This will mean that she will save the bill but the only way to get it over the top with such formidable opposition will be to weaponize herself, beat them at their own dirty game, and go down with their ship.
But what this would also do is force her to confront her addiction by going to jail, where she can't use her phone, do any real business, and it will put her in the only place she get "clean it". It's like she self-admits herself into rehab. And it's subtly handled in the last act, but it seems that Liz is grappling with that choice right up until the last moment before her final address before Congress. For an addict to give up the only thing they know and are good at (even if it's killing her) is a very tough choice and action. I think what pushed her over the top to go thru with her ultimate plan was two-fold: when Forde performed himself for her (that made her realize that someone will fall on the sword to protect another, and maybe she can too) and when Liz saw Esme enter the caucus room in the end (Esme was the face of the campaign for Liz and the emotional connection to the validity of the bill and what it stands for - and why it must succeed). And Liz owed it to Esme - after endangering and manipulating her - to make sure the bill succeeds. And at this point the only way it can succeed is if Liz plays her trump card, which will in turn incriminate her since she lied before congress that she's never used illegal surveillance.
This movie is so incredibly smart and well-crafted. There is so much going on, on both the surface and beneath it. And I sense that the writer and director saw every angle and left no real holes in the story or characters if you were to look at it under a microscope. For me, it's the best film of the year and one of the most intelligence and well-executed stories of the last many years. And it's also so much fun and very surprising and thrilling, with a deep undercurrent of emotion that emerges by the end. I found myself in tears when Liz wins this incredible battle but we see this dead look in her eyes when she stands up, knowing that she doesn't deserve to celebrate in this victory because of the way she was forced to play the game. She took full responsibility for her actions and protect her team and the bill by being their bulletproof vest. But some bullets got through and now she's metaphorically bleeding. Just amazing on every level.
I agree with most of what you say, but I do think there is at least one big flaw is that the final trump card is obtained through the use of illegal means, thus negating some of the potential legal consequences (although there are obvious public relations consequences). I also think the testimony of Ford is questionable since they surely had him on record in a deposition meaning that his testimony later was perjury. Otherwise, as you say, a smart and well-crafted script with excellent acting.
shareHmmm, not sure I understand what you mean by the negation of legal consequences. She used illegal means (unauthorized surveillance) to record evidence an illegal activity (blackmail; a false public hearing). So she, DuPont and Sperling we're all going down. Her crime was not as serious as theirs. Which meant that the gun lobby had a PR nightmare after Sloane revealed what they did, which made them toxic to support, and the remaining Senators who were under their thumb could now vote for Heaton-Harris, because supporting the bill was more dangerous for their career than opposing it. And Force and Liz were the only two to know the truth of their tryst (that established in their opening scene together) so there would be no evidence of her solicitation. As long as neither of them came clean about it, nothing will happen to either of them.
Let me know if that's not clarifying enough or I misread your concern.
Sorry, meant to write that opposing the bill was more dangerous for their careers than supporting it after the truth came about the trumped-up hearing and blackmail.
sharefrom the midwest.
🎄Season's Greetings!🎄