Despite its exemplary performances and sterling production values, HBO’s cinematic adaptation of All the Way struggles to escape the structural problems of the play on which it is based. Indeed, the film actually manages to pronounce them; a rigid two-act division on the stage feels harsh enough, but the result on-screen is two distinct films, lopsided in quality and unable to coalesce.
Robert Schenkkan’s Tony-winning work is best viewed as the moral interrogation of an intimidating, imposing and vulgar man – President Kennedy’s unelected successor Lyndon B. Johnson, typically referred to as LBJ – as he walks the very specific and very delicate line between politics and justice. The time period is the year after Kennedy’s assassination; the setting, predominantly, is the Oval Office. And there are two focuses, dividing the play into two clear halves. There’s the wheeling-and-dealing of the first, in which LBJ relentlessly works racist Southern Democrats, neglected African American leaders and flexible partisan opponents to get the Civil Rights Act (CRA) through Congress. The second rushes to the 1964 election, with LBJ striving to ensure victory before the fallout of the CRA catches up with him. Both are independently strong, but how – chronological order aside – they are intended to feed into one another lacks the necessary thematic clarity.
No matter, All the Way is a rollicking and inspired, if undeniably overstuffed, account of a pivotal political moment. LBJ is a giant figure, both for his historical impact and grandiose personality, and Schenkkan operatically realizes this without losing the man’s humanity. Moreover, the play’s perspective is engagingly complex, paying homage to the pluralist spirit of our political system by depicting with rigor the maneuvering and compromising intrinsic to sweeping change. Using LBJ’s penchant for dealmaking as the narrative engine makes for ingenious dramatization; the process feels alive, and the weight of its significance is appropriately measured.
The film version, which sees Bryan Cranston reprise his Tony-winning stage performance of LBJ, is directed by Jay Roach, whose HBO resume – consisting of the farcically outrageous yet soberingly accurate duo of Recount and Game Change – far surpasses his theatrical efforts. This continues with All the Way, coming only months after Roach’s middling Trumbo, which featured a comparably cartoonish turn from Cranston and demonstrated relatively minimal command of historical depiction. Both the director and actor are, conversely, in their element here, with Roach returning to the network at which he made an Emmy-winning name for himself, and Cranston to the role that first allowed him to step out of that consuming Breaking Bad shadow. Roach’s adaptation of All the Way is a well-mounted, restrained production; Cranston’s skill at playing to the camera reveals new dimensions to his already-exceptional re-creation. Their collaboration is fruitful.
In one sense, the filmed All the Way plays to the original text’s chief strength – that is, it expands on the electric, interpersonal dynamism of its first act. LBJ moving between the Dixiecrats, the establishment and the movement behind Martin Luther King, Jr. (Anthony Mackie) is rendered with greater immediacy. Particularly, Roach hones in on the relationship between LBJ and his ally-turned-adversary, Senator Richard Russell (Frank Langella); the scope of it nears Shakespearean, as the mentee coldly outplays the mentor through deceit and betrayal. Langella and Cranston are fiery opposite one another, the former making the most of a fairly limited role with gravitas and humility, the latter facing his elder with a confidence that doubles as poignant and tragic. The two share a final phone call near the end of the film, its solemnity and simplicity evocative, in contrast, of everything to come before it. Further, it’s reflective of Roach’s ability to scale the work with deep, emotionally satisfying relationships.
Yet Roach is also beholden to Schenkkan’s structure, a problem likely exacerbated by the fact that Schenkkan is aboard as executive producer and screenwriter. While the first half of All the Way moves briskly and thoughtfully, it lags at the back end. Attempts to parallel the journeys of LBJ and King – who similarly navigates factions of his own broad political alliance, including the NAACP and SNCC – are half-hearted, even dismissive, since King inevitably plays second fiddle in this presentation. (Ava DuVernay’s Selma, controversially, had it right, leaving LBJ mostly aside in its focus on King.) The further it moves away from LBJ and towards the events happening around him – again, especially in the second act – the less All the Way has to say, progressing like a lively but inessential history lesson. It’s a shame, because the saggy final hour undercuts some of the earlier, more powerful work accomplished – a problem stemming from the original play.
This speaks especially to the concern of faithfulness in adaptation. Aside from cutting the character of George Wallace and expanding the part of Lady Bird Johnson – played in the film by a typically excellent Melissa Leo – Schenkkan and Roach keep very close to the source material. The play translates well to the screen, but the shift also makes more apparent the flaws in the initial construction. Its length, at well over two hours, starkly indicates the need for tightening and trimming; strong as the production design and cinematography are, the trite score and predictable stylistic choices prohibit the play from escaping its more conventional trappings. It’s an unusual result, in other words – one that feels rich and scattered at once.
The film is peppered with other iconic figures, including J. Edgar Hoover (Stephen Root) and Hubert Humphrey (Bradley Whitford), and it often has fun with their retrospective images in popular culture – Hoover, a closeted obsessive ill-suited (to say the least) for the role of FBI director, and Humphrey, a generic white-guy-liberal whose idealism is repeatedly squashed by the consummate politician, LBJ. One also gets the sense of other important figures – predominantly, and thus problematically, black activists, such as Fannie Lou Hamer (Aisha Hinds) and Stokely Carmichael (Mo McRae) – being marginalized, their role in the events outsize relative to their screen-time. Inadvertently, then, the film makes a case for political and artistic processes as synonymous. Consider LBJ’s Great Society strategy, as presented here: include as much as possible, make the necessary compromises and hope the finished product is still of value. In adhering to that ethos, All the Way provides an aptly imperfect portrait of its subject.
Grade: B