The American President ***½ (1995, Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Michael J Fox, John Mahoney, Samantha Mathis, Richard Dreyfuss) – Classic Movie Review 945

Producer-director Rob Reiner’s 1995 romantic comedy drama stars Michael Douglas as widowed US President Andrew Shepherd, who seizes his chance for love and goes after political lobbyist journalist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). This amusing, well-honed, old-style romantic-comedy confection is very plushly set around the usually empty personal lives of people in high places.

Shepherd’s burgeoning relationship with Wade opens the door for his prime political opponent, Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), to launch an attack on the President’s character.

Showing good chemistry together, handsome couple Douglas and Bening charm and sparkle, overcoming some script wobbles and the movie’s rather unbelievable air of ‘if-only’ fantasy.

The American President benefits enormously from a distinguished screenplay, intelligently written by Aaron Sorkin, who devised and wrote the later Presidential TV series The West Wing, with co-star here Martin Sheen as its US President. Though the movie seems a bit of a dinosaur, Sorkin’s witty dialogue makes the old-style, slightly cheesy material seem fresh and new.

It also benefits enormously from a distinguished cast, who include Michael J Fox, John Mahoney, Anna Deavere Smith, Samantha Mathis, Shawna Waldron, David Paymer, Anne Haney and Nina Siemaszko.

Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee, but hasn’t won by 2014. She has two Golden Globes for Being Julia (2004) and The Kids Are All Right (2010) and won the 2000 Bafta for Best Actress. She married Warren Beatty on 3 March 1992 and they have four children.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 945 derekwinnert.com

Rob Reiner.