美国国家公共电台 NPR 'On The Basis Of Sex' And 'Vice': 2 Biopics — 1 Bathed In Light, 1 Steeped In Shadow

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Two films opened today with titles that make them sound a lot sexier than they are. One is called "Vice¹" and the other "On The Basis Of Sex." What they are is biopics about a conservative vice president and a liberal Supreme² Court justice. Critic Bob Mondello says the film's differences go way beyond politics.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE³: You know exactly what you're getting with "On The Basis Of Sex" from the opening moment, when a very young Ruth Bader Ginsburg strides into Harvard Law School surrounded by a sea of gray, black and navy business suits. The year is 1956, and at first, she's the only person you see in heels - cinematic shorthand. Times were different then. And when the law dean hosts a dinner party for the nine Harvard women in a class of hundreds, you're encouraged to bristle⁴, as Ruth does.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ON THE BASIS OF SEX")

SAM WATERSTON: (As Erwin Griswold) Let us go around the table. And each of you ladies report who you are where, you're from and why you're occupying a place at Harvard that could have gone to a man.

MONDELLO: After she graduates, things aren't much better. New York law firms won't hire Ginsburg, so she ends up teaching law. And then her husband comes to her with a tax case he's working on that he thinks might be up her alley⁵ - and it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ON THE BASIS OF SEX")

FELICITY JONES: (As Ruth Bader Ginsburg) This is sex-based discrimination against a man.

ARNIE HAMMER: (As Martin Ginsburg) Poor guy.

JONES: (As Ruth Bader Ginsburg) If a federal court ruled that this law is unconstitutional, then it could become the precedent⁶ others refer to and build on. Men and women both - it could topple the whole damn system of discrimination.

MONDELLO: Director Mimi Leder's approach to the story of a genuinely remarkable⁷ woman is genuinely remarkably⁸ conventional. There are hurdles⁹ jumped, doubts overcome, inspirational music, an earnest performance by Felicity Jones and a climactic courtroom scene that "On The Basis Of Sex" treats almost as a sporting event. Can she get her argument across the finish line? On the basis of cinematic precedents¹⁰, that is never very much in question.

You'd think "Vice" about Vice President Dick Cheney would be equally unsurprising. It's not like we don't know how his story turned out. But "Vice" is by Adam McKay, the guy who made credit default swaps¹¹ cool in "The Big Short" and cut his teeth on "Saturday Night Live." And he doesn't generally give audiences what they're expecting. Take the moment when a young, intensely devoted¹² Dick Cheney - played by Christian¹³ Bale, who gained 40 pounds for the role - is interning¹⁴ for a youngish Congressman¹⁵ Donald Rumsfeld and asks his mentor¹⁶ a question.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

CHRISTIAN BALE: (As Dick Cheney) What do we believe?

MONDELLO: Steve Carell's Rumsfeld takes in his protege.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

STEVE CARELL: (As Donald Rumsfeld, laughing) What do we believe? Oh, that's very good. What do we believe? (Laughter).

MONDELLO: This is early on, and Bale's Cheney is nothing if not a quick study, Machiavellian¹⁷, with a wife as hungry for power as he, at least according to the narrator, who pops in occasionally to muse¹⁸ about, say, the impossibility of knowing what the Cheneys were thinking when they realized George W. Bush was going to offer him the vice presidency¹⁹.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As narrator) You can't just snap into a Shakespearean soliloquy that dramatizes every feeling and motivation. It's just not the way the world works.

MONDELLO: It is, however, how an Adam McKay movie works.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

BALE: (As Dick Cheney) A mere²⁰ treaty is our union.

AMY ADAMS: (As Lynne Cheney) My own blood and will are yours, to pierced be the last soldier's breastplate spilling forth²¹ its ruby²² jelly treasures.

MONDELLO: Growling²³, gruff and grumpy, Christian Bale makes the title character a lot like his Batman - basically a psychopath-turned-vigilante. Amy Adams is sharp as his Lady Macbeth.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

ADAMS: (As Lynne Cheney) Half the room wants to be us. The other half hears us.

MONDELLO: And Sam Rockwell is a great foil as Dubya (ph).

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

SAM ROCKWELL: (As George W. Bush) I want you to be my VP. You're the solution to my problem.

BALE: (As Dick Cheney) The vice presidency is mostly a symbolic²⁴ job.

ROCKWELL: (As George W. Bush) I can see how that wouldn't be enticing²⁵ to you.

BALE: (As Dick Cheney) However...

MONDELLO: McCay views Cheney as responsible for most of the things that are wrong with the world today, and he pursues that notion with take-no-prisoners zeal²⁶, also with considerable cleverness from the fishing lures²⁷ in the shape of Twin Towers and oil derricks that grace the final credits to the waiter who offers Cheney and other diners a menu of governmental horrors.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "VICE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Tonight, we're offering the enemy combatant, whereby by a person is not a prisoner of war or a criminal, which means, of course, that he has absolutely no protection under the law. We're also offering an extraordinary rendition where suspects are...

MONDELLO: "Vice" is as entertainingly negative about the vice president as "On The Basis Of Sex" is blandly²⁸ positive about the future Supreme Court justice. So it's Christmas - choose your poison. I'm Bob Mondello.