As you might find, that’s probably enough. While its take on the power of narratives isn’t so powerful, the faces that appear on your TV are. (For a true classic, the 1962 film is also available on VOD.) But tinged by 9/11 paranoia and conspiracy, it’s a relic of the era with a cast of familiar faces. The Manchurian Candidate is far from the best political thriller of the 2000s, let alone all time. Washington, meanwhile, proves he truly was the leading man of the mid-aughts, working like a chameleon to enter the mind and body of an unkempt veteran whose diet consists of instant noodles and glasses that are always at the tip of his nose. Her incestuous obsession with Raymond, played by a calculated Schreiber (who is just 18 years Streep’s junior), reads more like evidence of selfish hubris than predatory behavior. Streep is at her best as a powerful senator, clearly irked by her inability to break through the political glass ceiling that’s still present even today. The film is streaming on Netflix until August 31. What’s more, the intentionally cartoonish and frequent onscreen graphics of cable TV news - meant to illustrate Marco’s own detachment from reality - only make us, the viewer, detached from any grounding necessary to make a story like this one work.ĭenzel Washington, in The Manchurian Candidate. But this results in a movie that feels like the first draft of a project rather than the final cut. The effect is a purposeful choice to mirror Marco’s own inability to dream. Its plot, which is as structured as sand, and the floating camerawork by cinematographer Tak Fujimoto are all meant to conjure up the wispy feeling of a dream. Unfortunately, the film itself fails to see its own narrative shortcomings. The seemingly popular Raymond Shaw - whose actual partisan politics aren’t defined, if at all - and his story about courage under fire seems uncannily perfect, almost as if it were scripted. The film follows one man’s impossible search for the truth in the scary world of surveillance, politics-as-spectacle, and xenophobia.ĭemme’s Manchurian Candidate is keenly aware of the power of narrative and how it shapes our behavior. The Manchurian Candidate is a paranoid thriller with a sci-fi bent. Jeffrey Wright (who is currently narrating Marvel’s What If.?) is also part of The Manchurian Candidate’s all-star cast.
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