No thank you...

I just finished watching “Thank You for Smoking,” which I meant to see when it came out, but missed it before it left theaters. Anyway, I was very excited to see the film, both because of what I had read prior to its release and the reviews I read after it came out. The film received quite a bit of praise from critics and audiences alike and while I am not one to trust everything I read, I was still excited to see what may be a good satire (a genre that I feel is sadly lacking). Needless to say, my expectations for the film were fairly high.
Aaron Eckhart, as tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor (Nic-otine Nailer), was fabulous and I must admit that I did laugh out loud several times watching the film (something I am less likely to do when I am alone.) Rob Lowe as a Hollywood agent was fabulous, even with only a few minutes of screen time. But I found the film, in general, a bit tame. If you’re going to make a satire about the moral flexibility of lobbyists and politicians, I say go full force, no holds barred. I wanted to be offended by the film’s unwillingness to back down and mostly, I want to feel a ping of guilt for laughing – but I didn’t.
Indeed, the first half of the film seemed to be building momentum to the hysterical, yet guilty laughs I was craving, but instead shifted focus to the relationship between Eckhart and his teenage son. It is here that the film became less satire and more about the moral redemption his character receives – he isn’t completely redeemed by the film’s end, but the film still seems to be peddling a message, which felt kind of unnecessary and actually a bit annoying. I didn’t want to leave this film with some ‘moral of the story.’ Sure, smoking is unhealthy and lobbyists and politicians alike are corrupt, but we all know that. I found Eckhart’s eventual abandonment of Big Tobacco for his son’s sake to be unbelievable and I felt a bit betrayed.
In fact, the people that end up looking the most unethical by the film’s end are journalists and women – as a female journalist I must admit I was a bit insulted. Katie Holmes plays journalist Heather Holloway who uses not journalistic integrity and wit to get the story on Nick Naylor, but instead uses her “great tits” (as the character’s constantly call them) and sleeps with him to get him to reveal his secrets. So if lobbyists and politicians are bad, journalists are just plain evil as they will apparently stop at nothing to get the story.
Whereas Nick Naylor is redeemed by the end of the film and moves on to a bigger, better job (his own business), Heather instead is shown degraded as a weathergirl caught in a storm. The women in the film in general are either one-dimensional characters, evil seductresses, whores, clueless idiots (as is Nick’s ex-wife) or in the case of Maria Bello’s character they have just become “one of the guys.” I could go on for pages about how this movie objectifies, vilifies and generally dismisses women, but this blog is getting a bit long and I feel I’ve made my point.
In the end, the movie reminded me of an episode of “The Family Guy” where Peter’s company is taken over by a tobacco company and he becomes president and spokesman. “The Family Guy” is never forgiving, everyone is fair game – that episode is particularly merciless. I recommend renting that instead of “Thank You for Smoking” if you want good satire.