Don’t fuck with Jessica Chastain. The multiple Oscar nominee delivers her fiercest and most impressive performance to date as a brutally sharp political lobbyist who takes on the gun lobby in one of the year’s best movies, Miss Sloane.
Entertaining, fast-paced and intelligent, Miss Sloane is a more satisfying version of Michael Clayton. Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), working from a script by first-time writer Jonathan Perera, offers up a highly likable asshole of a character and drops her into an engaging, believable world where she gets to chew up everyone and everything in her path.
Madden and Perera’s story is witty and calculating, a fascinating examination of the operations that drive decisions in the federal government. Few people have positive things to say about lobbyists–myself included–but the filmmakers do a great job at creating a cast of love-to-hate-them characters.
Miss Sloane also boasts one of the most satisfying endings of any film this year; I literally clapped when I figured out what was really happening.
The movie may not be an emotional powerhouse or exotic drama, but Miss Sloane is superbly written and features one of the best performances of the year (seriously, don’t be surprised if Jessica Chastain finally takes home Oscar gold). As engrossing as it is, it’s hard to deny that Miss Sloane is one of the best movies of the year.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.