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“It’s about making sure you surprise them, and they don’t surprise you.”
When Friday rolls around and you get the chance to turn your brain off, even for just a little while, sometimes it’s nice to have a thriller to sink your teeth into.
In Jessica Chastain’s powerhouse performance that landed her a Golden Globe nomination this year, she portrays Elizabeth Sloane, a cut-throat lobbyist with a reputation for winning.
Though her methods often dance with the border between ethical and non-ethical, when Sloane is asked to help the gun lobby kill a bill that demands universal background-checks on firearms, she takes a solid stance. Instead of accepting their offer, she leaves her company to work for the bill’s opposition, a small and scrappy law firm, and tenaciously takes on what she is told is an unbeatable opponent.
Though her new employees don’t quite know what to make of her, Sloane inspires in them, as well as movie viewers, an almost blind loyalty, mesmerizing them with her ability to always have a plan, even when all hope seems lost.
Told through a series of flashbacks, the film begins near the story’s end at Miss Sloane’s ethics hearing and then works back through the events that have transpired to bring her to this moment. Sloane is hardly a model citizen, but she is understandable, and her character asks viewers to grapple with the ethics of trying to promote a worthy cause, no matter the consequences.
The film explores the complex question of “How far is too far when pursuing a cause you believe in?” It also delves into the idea that trying to do good doesn’t make you a good person if you do it for your own reasons. The film leaves you reevaluating your own moral compass as well as critically examining a heroine who will do anything to win.
Don’t let the poor box office standings fool you, Miss Sloane is not a film to be missed; its culminating mic drop will make you want to stand up and cheer, even while questioning if it’s morally okay to do so.
Maya Kanga 