Whatever ill will director Jason Reitman may have garnered for “Labor Day” and “Men, Women and Children” has been more or less negated in the eyes of most critics by the well-received, if commercially underwhelming “Tully.” Now the pressure is on “The Front Runner” to complete this 2018 two-fer on a worthy note, and this time, the filmmaker is getting topical.
READ MORE: ‘Front Runner,’ ‘The Favourite’ & ‘First Man’ Among Official 2018 Telluride Selections
Returning to the messy world of politics to an extent we haven’t seen since 2005’s “Thank You for Smoking,” Reitman’s next feature sees the “Juno” helmsman mining for satire in the true-life sex scandal of presidential candidate Gary Hart. The biographical comedy is based on Matt Bai’s 2014 book “All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid,” and if that work is anything to go by, ‘Front Runner’ will primarily take aim at the 24-hour news cycle and the tabloid mentality of political journalism that Hart’s scandal reportedly helped solidify.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Hugh Jackman is set to star in the upcoming biopic “The Front Runner,” about former Senator Gary Hart. Hart served as a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1975 to 1987, but is most famous for his two bids for the presidency in 1984 and 1988. During the latter primary campaign, he was considered the frontrunner, far ahead of eventual candidate Mike Dukakis, but his momentum became hobbled by accusations in the media of an extramarital affair. Hart famously challenged the media to, “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” The tabloids accepted the challenge, and photographs of Hart with a woman named Donna Rice aboard a yacht brought a swift end to his candidacy.
The film’s cast includes Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, Kaitlyn Dever, Sara Paxton, J. K. Simmons, Mamoudou Athie, Molly Ephraim, Josh Brener, and Mike Judge. Bai and Reitman are sharing script duties with Jay Carson.
“The Front Runner” will have showings at Telluride and the Toronto International Film Festival, before hitting US theaters on November 7 via Columbia Pictures. Watch the trailer below:
