A Hollywood President

Kevin Kline shook up the West Wing in "Dave." How does the movie hold up?

Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline in Dave (1993).

Hello friends,

And welcome new subscribers! As long as you’re here, I’ll reintroduce myself: My name is Erin and I’m a journalist and author of nonfiction books about movies and the people who make them. This newsletter is named after my favorite rom-com of all time. In homage to Kathleen Kelly, I try to keep my little corner of the internet cozy and warm and hopefully interesting and worth your while; I mostly send out essays on whatever I’m watching or reading or observing in the culture.

Admittedly, I could not bring myself to tune into The Debate a couple weeks ago. Instead, wanting to limit exposure to Donald Trump, I scrolled Threads for the secondhand hot takes. My stomach dropped: Trump won that round. And then, a familiar sense of dread. The creeping fear that the monster is back, more dangerous than ever, and out for revenge.

As an antidote to the news cycle, last night I rewatched Dave, a movie released in 1993 that I hadn’t seen since Crystal Pepsi was a thing. It’s a political comedy starring Kevin Kline in dual roles as do-gooder Dave Kovic, who runs an employment agency in Washington, D.C., and heartless President Bill Mitchell, who orders his staff to defund programs that help homeless children — giving his elegant, principled wife Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) further reason to resent him. Dave happens to look exactly like Mitchell and makes money on the side during impressions of him. When Mitchell suffers a severe stroke while canoodling with his secretary (a young Laura Linney), Mitchell’s chief of staff, Bob Alexander (a chilling Frank Langella), hires Dave to perform his most important gig to date: Stepping into Mitchell’s actual shoes as the real man lies in a coma in a secret underground chamber. Bob persuades Dave that duping the masses is somehow in the national interest. He fails to mention his true motive: To keep Mitchell’s fragile health under lock and key so that Vice President Gary Nance (a dignified Sir Ben Kingsley) cannot replace him in the Oval Office.

The whole thing is preposterous! And yet, Kline manages to make his performances believable and distinct from one another. His Dave is a gentle soul especially suited for a life of public service, a con man who uses his powers for good. He cannot help but reveal his whimsical personality in every photo-op. He likes babies and dogs. He makes corny jokes. He throws out the first pitch at an Orioles game and nails it. He makes a sandwich for his Secret Service agent. He finds a way to trim $650 million from the federal budget and rescue financial aid for homeless and at-risk kids. He fights for a strong safety net ensuring a job for everyone who wants one. He starts polling “84 percent with working mothers” and ultimately wins over the First Lady, Mitchell’s toughest critic, who comes to realize that he’s a phony. How? While they take the state car to an event, Ellen, wearing a skirt, catches Dave staring at her legs. Mitchell never stares at her legs. Something is up.

The original poster.

Spoiler alert: Dave begins to take to his rarified role and stand up for himself. He fires Bob for doing dirty deeds in Mitchell’s name, and when Bob seeks retribution by exposing Mitchell’s criminal wrongdoing, Dave digs up the receipts and implicates his nemesis in the corruption scandal as well. Still impersonating his doppelganger, he summons Congress for one last televised speech and confesses to the crimes in a heartfelt apology. “I ought to care more about you than I care about me,” he says.

In a smooth if shocking transfer of power, he gives his job to the VP and collapses — faking a stroke. His body is covertly swapped for Mitchell, who dies in the hospital. Later, Ellen goes looking for Dave and finds him campaigning for city council. They kiss and seemingly have another go at the White House in the future.

First of all, Dave in its original incarnation would never be made today. It is too earnest but not in a winking Ted Lasso fashion. It is out of touch with modern sensibilities and our politically divided society; the MAGA cultists would rip Dave apart. It lacks diversity and representation. It cannot imagine a world in which, say, a competent, compassionate leader like Ellen Mitchell might launch her own political campaign. The movie was filmed in late 1992, the historic year that four women were elected to the Senate, including Illinois’ Carol Moseley Braun, the first-ever Black woman senator, but ignored such progress and booked cameos by seven real-life politicians, six of whom were Democrats, all of whom were white men.

What are Dave’s politics? I would say solidly Liberal. The film’s screenwriter, Gary Ross, had worked on both Ted Kennedy and Michael Dukakis’ failed POTUS campaigns during the 1980s, a time of conservative Republican dominance. Clearly, Ross yearned to rewrite these personal disappointments and dream up a fantasy version of the leader of the free world. An Everyman whose natural charisma and sweetness disarms cynical politicos and voters and sways them to his side. At that time, only a Hollywood writer could invent him.

Ross first pitched the idea for Dave to producer Lauren Shuler Donner (who also produced You’ve Got Mail) in 1985, and she suggested that Ross flesh out the romance between Dave and Ellen. Her studio, Walt Disney Pictures, rejected the project because they did not want to lampoon Ronald Reagan’s administration while the former movie star was still in power. Finally, with Ivan Reitman attached to direct and Kline to star, Warner Brothers hit the greenlight less than a year before Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory put a Democrat back in office. Hollywood Democrats rallied behind Clinton, though he skewed closer to Mitchell in terms of his extracurricular activities.

Dave made a respectable $63 million at the box office and garnered critical acclaim, including a screenwriting Oscar nomination for Ross and a Golden Globe nod for Kline.

Years later, Kline strolled down Fifth Avenue while then-President George W. Bush was visiting New York.

“There was a police escort,” Kline told Variety in 2018. “I was just looking, and someone said, ‘I wish it was you. Why didn’t you run?’”

Former President Barack Obama is a fan, too.

“I love Dave,” he once said to Kline, apparently after handing over the presidency to Trump. “I love watching it when I’m depressed because you make it look so fun, you make it so easy. I think if our current president saw the movie, he’d be rooting for [Mitchell].”

Nowadays, I look back on the Obama Era with a kind of wistful nostalgia. He made it look so fun and so easy, even though congressional gridlock (remember the Tea Party?) wore him down. In 2008, the buzz around Obama electrified the populace. He was just 47 years old old (!) when he began his first of two terms. He was young and cool and inspiring, an intellectual with humble origins, bearable human flaws (a smoking habit) and an even better half in Michelle Obama. If the Obamas didn’t already exist, some idealistic screenwriter might’ve dreamed them up.

Obama has publicly supported President Biden amid growing calls for his ex-VP to step down following that poor debate performance. (Privately, he reportedly harbors concerns.) But look, I will certainly vote for Biden in November, and if he happens to quit the race, I will vote for whoever takes his place. I will vote for Kamala Harris. I will vote for Mayor Pete. I will vote for Gretchen Whitmer. Hell, I would vote for Travis Kelce if he were on the ticket. The alternative is simply too bleak.

Over the weekend, French voters held back Marine Le Pen’s far right in parliamentary elections and the U.K.’s Labour Party triumphed after 14 years of conservative rule. I’m hoping the U.S. follows suit and trying to harness some of that Dave Kovic optimism.

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Well, so much for warm and cozy! I’ll return to regular programming in my next letter. (Going forward, I will publish every two weeks.) Until then, you can check out my Nicole Kidman thinkpiece in The Cut and my interview with the icon and her Family Affair co-star Zac Efron in the L.A. Times. On Substack, I recently enjoyed Rob Thomas’ Brats review and Becca Freeman’s latest Book Report.

Yours in “I once caught a fish THIS BIG,”

Erin