Review: Politics oozes off the screen in 'Affairs of State'

Posted Tuesday, August 14, 2018 at 11:52 AM Central

by John Couture

I don't know about you, but when I sit down to watch a movie, I want to escape. The real world spinning around us each day is filled with enough drama and intrigue that when I watch a movie, I just want to escape it all.

Affairs of State is not a film that aims to promote escapism. No, it takes the sizzling current political landscape and turns it up to 11 with enough backstabbing and sexual roulette to make Omarosa blush.

The movie promotes itself as a gripping thriller in which rising political newcomer Michael Lawson isn't shy about getting dirty in his rise to glory. Along the way, he's willing to sleep with a Presidential candidate's wife and daughter to further his political ambitions. With such a busted moral compass, what wouldn't he do to get what he wants?

The film is sprinkled with established actors throughout, but the crux of the entire movie falls onto the shoulders of relative unknown David Corenswet. I'm sure you're asking the same question that I did, 'Who is David Corenswet?' Well, I can tell you that after watching the film, I'm still not sure. He struck me as a young Andrew Garfield with enough acting chops that he didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

But still, when your entire film boils down to one key performance, you better be sure that you picked the right person for the job. For the most part, David delivers an admirable performance which makes me wonder what his day job was before he took up acting. He was quite convincing as a political gigolo to the point where I started to enjoy his performance.

Unfortunately, despite strong performances from Adrian Grenier, Thora Birch and Mimi Rogers, the film is undermined by its own script. While I can appreciate the filmmakers' desire to strike while the political climate is lit, it is a bit of overkill on their part and it ends up being a little annoying. We get it, politicians are slimeballs and the swamp around them isn't much better. We can see that for ourselves every day on whatever channel we choose.

While that made up political family draws inspiration from several easy to decipher real-life counterparts, I was left longing for the equally fictional political family from House of Cards more than anything. It seemed that the movie was continually pulling its punch and if there's one thing that Frank Underwood doesn't do it's pulling his punch.

At the end of the day, Affairs of State played like a mix of a Lifetime movie and something that you would see on Showtime after dark. It tried to toe the line as best as it could, but ultimately its indecision cost the film an opportunity to make a more convincing argument. Instead, we are left with a flaccid condemnation of politics that falls short of anything that we can deduce from our daily dose of crazy around us.

Affairs of State is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.