Woody Harrelson as LBJ: What it Takes to be Presidential

A riveting, bejowled Woody Harrelson occupies the screen making LBJ something he wasn’t: a most charismatic president. Insecure, politically ambitious, Johnson became president under abject circumstances: the presidency was thrust upon him when JFK was assassinated. He wanted the job, but not that way. His personality, his conflicts with Bobby Kennedy, well played by Michael Stahl-David, and this liminal two-week period, form the core of Rob Reiner’s latest film, LBJ, from a script by Joey Hartstone. This week after a screening, Harrelson, Stahl-David, and Hartstone joined Reiner and Steve Schmidt for a panel at “21.” That Harrelson played Schmidt in the television movie Game Change became the inside joke of the lunchtime event. Then again, Harrelson is one of the great, most versatile actors of his generation. So yes, he can even play a Republican.

What more could be said about LBJ after the Broadway show, All the Way, and the movie of the same name starring Bryan Cranston? Turns out that the focus on this short interim of this life and political career reveals much about the man. But really, timing is everything. As the panel pointed out, the movie was shot in 2016, before the Trump election, and America was a different place. Even the formal swearing in, with the president’s hand on the Bible as he declares to uphold the Constitution is jarring, rather than routine, because the man in office now is so much less—well, presidential. As both Reiner and Harrelson attest, they were not sure about making this film because their memory of LBJ was linked to the Viet Nam War, but this portrayal shows many sides, particularly in his following his predecessor’s policy on Civil Rights.

Another side is shown too in the bedroom. Jennifer Jason Leigh is excellent as Lady Bird Johnson, recounting their courtship and marriage, and cajoling him through the worst of his nightmares. While Robert Caro’s biography LBJ was a primary source, most of the dialogue was invented, with Harrelson, a Texan as was LBJ, obsessed with getting Johnson’s “hill country” accent just right. Harrelson’s latest movies, Glass Castle, War for the Planet of the Apes, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri reveal his first-rate acting, and Lost in London, his directorial debut, another aspect of his career. Still, he says, he really liked those jowls.

Regina Weinreich

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