Irresistible (2020)

Irresistible review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Jon Stewart clearly couldn’t stay quiet considering not long after he retired from The Daily Show did American politics spiral into an out-of-control circus so wildly warped it couldn’t be processed in the most maddening of imaginations. He popped into Colbert’s late-night program a few times to deliver an angry rant and continued his work in politics to fight for the first-responders that were tossed under the bus by congress. Given his experience with directing the film Rosewater, eyes were on him to see what he could conceive with so much to say and so much time to craft. The result is Irresistible, a political campaign satire that gets lost within its own woods of commenting on how messed up American politics have become.

Taking place after President Trump won the 2016 election, Democrat political strategist Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) is struggling to make a name for himself in Trump’s America. Feeling as though his political party is losing touch with the working-class midwest, his spirits are reinvigorated when he witnesses a viral video by veteran Marine Colonel Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper). Jack speaks out at a town hall meeting in his small Wisconsin town in a manner that seems, unlike his mostly Republican community. Maybe conservatives would listen to a man like Jack. Maybe even vote for him.

Gary travels to town and tries to meld into the midwest atmosphere of bars, farms, and county fairs to stick up for Jack. Soon, Gary’s Republican rival of Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne) comes to town and the two find themselves once more locked in a political battle, doing whatever they can for their party to win. They also have some sexual tension considering their bet about who will win has the prize being oral sex. Their rivalry grows more intense while the bewildered town tries to figure them out. Naturally, Jack becomes uneasy and weary with the political process and feels as though his message and meaning are becoming lost in the constant vying for donors and smear campaigns that mount.

I started to get a queasy feeling in my stomach when Jack’s daughter Diana (Mackenzie Davis) is introduced as the immediate love interest of Gary. Are we really supposed to swallow that he’ll learn to love Wisconsin and reject his obvious attraction to Faith? Well, kinda. Stewart somewhat realizes that absurdity of such a story and kinda/sorta tries to stage this picture as a satire on the political process. There are some clear jabs at the hideous nature of capitalism, the divisive nature of political parties, and the disconnect that Democrats have with Middle-America. While I mostly appreciate that this story never becomes saccharine in favoring an easy end for this tale of America’s political decay, it takes a scattershot approach, especially towards the end of the picture which literally can’t decide on an ending.

Irresistible has the appearance of a political comedy with something to say, but does so at the last minute and with an almost prank-like reveal of where this type of story is headed. The biggest joke of Irresistible is that it plays a trick on both its protagonist and the audience, making you believe it’s about one thing and then meandering off into a different direction. In fact, several directions, mostly commenting on how the country operates strictly on profit margins and if you don’t have those or something that wealthy people have some vested interest in, you don’t matter. Of course, this requires an extra level of observation considering this film is content enough with its punch to merely observe that money is the only one with a happy ending in this sloppy picture.