Meryl Streep's Hillary Problem
GP note: Click the link for pictures of Ms. Streep playing Hillary.
aflyonthewall.journalspace.com
posted 06/13/04
Paramount Pictures is worried that Meryl Streep's edgy, chilling performance as a U.S. Senator in The Manchurian Candidate, which opens at the end of next month, is too close to the real Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a pal inside the studio tells me.
As a result, studio honchos have asked director Jonathan Demme to make little recuts and trims here and there to remove some of the more Hillaryesque gestures and expressions in the flick.
"Meryl is brilliantly scary and evil," my Paramount buddy says, who's seen the film through several rough assemblages and later cuts. "But she clearly seems like she's playing Senator Hillary, not just any woman senator. It's also something test audiences have commented about."
It doesn't help, either, that Meryl has a Hillary hairdo and wears Hillarian clothes and jewelry.
"Meryl has the Hillary hand gestures totally down pat," my insider tells me. "I don't know whether this is something she picked up subconsciously or an idea Jonathan gave her, but she's totally dead on. You feel like you're watching Hillary Clinton conspire to take over the world. The Republican Hillary-haters should totally eat this up."
The studio's motives in requesting the de-Hillaryization are because of a feared backlash. "They don't want to look like they're Democrat-bashing," the insider says. "They want this to be seen as a serious thriller and not something campy."
Indeed, the Paramount brass are strongly in the Democrat fold, as is much of Hollywood. Paramount poobah Sherry Lansing has appeared at several fundraising events here in Tinseltown hosted by Mrs. Ketchup Kerry.
If you're scratching your head and trying to remember a woman senator in the 1962 version of Manchurian, your memory isn't failing you.
The new film is not technically a remake of the classic but instead goes back to Dick Condon's original source novel. The nefarious senator's wife, played brilliantly by Angela Lansbury in the older film version, is now an evil lady senator who orchestrates her son's ascendancy to Vice President of the United States.
Denzel Washington suits up as the brainwashed soldier, and Liev Schreiber plays the villainous veep.
Meryl's icy performance is also a safe bet for an Oscar nod, considering her catnip factor with the Academy. She's been nominated a record thirteen times and has won twice.
"The movie is kind of a ho-hum thriller," my Paramole tells me. "A serviceable script and journeyman directing. But Meryl totally stands out. She makes the movie worthwhile. It's absolutely electric when she's onscreen." |
