Review: The Butler
By Christine Petralia
Image courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
September 2, 2013
Spoiler Alerts (sort of)
This historical film based loosely on the life of Eugene Allen, a White House butler, follows Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a black man who works hard to provide for his family. Despite my non-love of Oprah, I went into the theater with an open mind and not only learned from the film, but left with tears in my eyes.
The film begins in 2008 with an older Gaines sitting in the White House waiting for the president. He starts to reminisce about his life as a young boy in the 1920s on a cotton farm with his parents. As he watches his mother get raped and his father get killed, the house master takes him under her wing and teaches him out to be a house servant (well, she uses a different phrase, but you get my drift). As he grows up, he takes these lessons and leaves the farm in search of a better life. He quickly learns that life is no better in the streets and in and effort to not starve, he breaks into a shop to eat. The head servant takes pity on him and despite wanting to throw him out in the street, soon takes him under his wing and teaches him how to serve and be the best ‘butler’ he could be.
This job leads to an offer to work in a hotel in Washington, D.C. Soon, he has a wife, Gloria (Oprah) and two kids (it should be noted that Allen only had one son). Gaines works hard to make sure his children and wife are provided for. One day he gets a phone call from his boss at the hotel. The White House wants to interview for a job there. He gets the job and starts working long hours to prove that he is the best.
The first president he serves under is the Eisenhower administration in 1957. He witnesses firsthand the president’s struggle with civil rights and whether or not he should racially integrate schools.
Back at home, his eldest son Louis (David Oyelowo) heads off to school in the South, despite Gaines’ protest. Louis gets involved in sit-ins and protests. He gets arrested several times, but doesn’t back down and continues on his crusade for equal rights. By now, Kennedy is in office and Gaines has all but banished his son from his life. Moved by a KKK attack on a bus in Alabama, which Louis is on, Kennedy proposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Gaines has hope in this president, but Kennedy is assassinated and things just aren’t the same.
Louis joins a group called the Black Panthers, and knowing that Nixon is against this movement, Gaines banishes him from the house. Meanwhile, his younger son joins the Army, months later Gaines and his wife are burying their youngest. Gaines now refuses to talk to Louis, who did not attend the funeral. Louis goes on to get his master’s and run for Congress. Gaines continues on with his job and even earns recognition from Reagan and his wife after he gets raises for the colored staff.
Still not fulfilled, Gaines quits his job at White House butler and takes his retirement to spend time with Gloria and fix his relationship with Louis.
In 2008, we see an elderly Gaines and Gloria with their extended family, supporting the Obama campaign. Gloria dies shortly before the election. Gaines, however, lives to see Obama win. We are then taken back to Gaines sitting at the White House as he’s escorted off to meet Obama, with the best line in the movie “I know the way.”
I know the historical events were true. However, I don’t know how much of Allen’s life was in Gaines’ character. In an interview with Allen’s son, he said Whitaker did a great job of portraying his father.
I thought it was done really well. There wasn’t really a dry eye in the theater as we see Gaines’ joy, and almost relief, when Obama wins the election. To witness what this man had over the decades, and actually see the struggles past presidents had with civil rights, was just amazing.
If you don’t get a chance to see this in the theater, it’s a must-see at some point.
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