The American political system is very easy to poke fun at, regardless of what side of the aisle you lie or what your personal morals are. This system is also, unfortunately, run by nothing but money and while there is a lot of comedy to find in that as well, I don't think Jon Stewart was the director to do so. Irresistible is a very misguided and unaffecting satire that had so much potential to take a certain path but really refuses to take a stance on anything. It's easy to tell that Stewart thinks he is breaking boundaries with this story by trying to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum but in reality, this film really had nothing to say. Not enough drama to keep me interested in the characters and not enough comedy to at least make me laugh was its main issue and while I really enjoyed the performances and energy from its leads, there was not nearly enough substance to make this film worth their time.
Gary Zimmer (Steve Carrell) is a Democratic political analyst in Washington, D.C. who sees an opportunity to win a swing vote in the small town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin. When he decides on local veteran Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) to run for mayor, he must use all of the tricks in his book to win the seat occupied by rival Braun (Brent Sexton), whose reelection campaign is being run by conservative Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne). The performances from the cast throughout this film are really what keeps it going and Carrell, Cooper, and especially Byrne were all brilliantly cast. They play into their nearly stereotypical roles very well and I loved how much chemistry they all exuded. Byrne is spectacular as the Republican analyst and she actually provides for most of the effective humor in this film without being too much of a parody of something else. Cooper is amazing too and I really enjoyed his endearing portrayal of the conflicted veteran who just wanted to do right by his town. I just simply had a really hard time caring about Stewart's script because of how lackluster its genre seemed to be. The comedy never really rears its head and the only amusement that I got from the film was Zimmer's initial introduction to the small-town community. A Washington, D.C. liberal elite being thrown into a small, hometown was entertaining at first but Carrell's shtick could not really keep up with the pace of the rest of the movie. There also isn't enough drama in this film to make me care about the campaign itself. Stewart has a very difficult time juggling these two and I don't think he was ever able to stick the landing. As a result, this film just felt really awkward and never really leaned into one thing that he was trying to say. As much as I feel like this story was unfocused, there is a very heartfelt message somewhere to be found about accepting small, rural communities as integral parts of this country that should not be taken for granted but it definitely has to be looked at with an eye of optimism to be found.
A film's ending can also really make or break its audience's experience and especially when it comes to a story delving into something as dicey as American politics, it better be quite clear. Irresistible, however, does not provide that and its ending completely negates any so-called message that could have been learned along the way. Spending the entire runtime of this film learning to care about the people of this small town is an obvious tactic screenwriters can use to get their audience to sympathize with them, regardless of the political beliefs they may hold. Stewart did exactly this and I really did want Hastings to win the election after all of the struggles that he had been through. Putting aside my own political leanings, it is very easy for anyone to see why this small town was to be rooted for and seeing the contrast between Zimmer's lack of care and the town's great deal of care did nothing for me. I did not honestly care about Carrell's character and trying to get me to understand where he was coming from was really just a fruitless effort. The reveal towards the end that the entire town had been in on hiring Zimmer from the start for the sake of raising money was some Scooby-Doo level trickery that proved to be goofy more than anything. It's the structure that Stewart chose to use that frustrated me the most. If he would have framed this film more around Hastings and his daughter Diana (Mackenzie Davis) instead of the analysts, I would have been much more on board. Make Carrell and Byrne much more antagonistic and the conflicts that these characters go through would have been much more believable. Jon Stewart is an exceptional voice in political comedy and I really thought that his experience could have led to a much stronger film. If only he would have produced this and had someone else write the more humorous parts of what was advertised to be a comedy, it could have been a much more memorable and much less formulaic look at how politicians and their money simply exist to pander to middle America.
Irresistible is quite a disappointing film that never really tried to be either a drama or a comedy. In the same way that its writer/director tries to split the middle by telling a heartwarming story, nothing ever really gets accomplished in this film. I really wanted to like this but if a filmmaker wants to tell a story about the greed of American politics, I feel like the only way to do it is hard satire. America is a much more complex beast than the ideological one that Stewart tries to present here and while I am a fan of wishful thinking, there is no way in hell that a story about a small-town election like this would turn out so hunky-dory, even for the sake of aspirational storytelling.
My Rating: ★★½
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