Gore Vidal’s The Best Man Review: 2012 Campaign…in 1960
7 / 10
The most prominent graphic element on the new Best Man poster is the list of names of the stars of the show. There is a general rule of thumb about movies that if the ad features numerous boxes with pictures of each star and the caption “[star] as [role]” that the movie is likely to be a dog. That is not the case here. Nearly every role is cast with thespian royalty, including Michael McKean as an aide and Jefferson Mays as a character who has dirt on one of the candidates. Even Donna Hanover, the former first lady of New York, has a small role as a reporter in her Broadway debut. Most of the actors deliver. The exceptions, though, undermine the production: Eric McCormack as the slick candidate and Kerry Butler as his catty Southern belle wife. They are not just wrong-headed but whiny-voiced and annoying. This is not comic caricature, or at least not successful caricture. They just seem the result of inadequate stage craft. That this is so is both disappointing and completely baffling.
