Don’t even try to put the women of The First Lady in an East Wing corner.
“I am going to be myself,” Betty Ford insists. “I am going to do and say things that I believe in.” Michelle Obama’s attitude is somewhat more explosive: “They want to turn me into a Black Martha Stewart?” As for ahead-of-her-time Eleanor Roosevelt, “I’m not thrilled about the fact that my title refers to my sex rather than my skills.”
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Hear, hear. Three remarkable women portrayed by three astonishing actresses in their prime: Showtime’s new miniseries is like a trio of fascinating biopics in one. Even when the jumping between decades gets dizzying — tackling pre-WWII segregation one minute, ERA ratification in the 1970s the next, then on to current-times racial profiling — the intertwining of the personal with the political makes this the most irresistible historical spectacle since The Crown.
Good luck picking just one to shower with awards. Gillian Anderson, so memorable in her Emmy-winning turn as The Crown‘s Margaret Thatcher, is just as vividly authentic as the outspoken Eleanor, an unyielding voice for the oppressed who’s wounded by her husband’s infidelity, seeking secret solace with a woman. Michelle Pfeiffer is riveting and endearing as the irreverent Betty, the life of the party who by going public with her private pain, battling breast cancer and addiction, became a national role model. And no surprise that Oscar-Emmy-Tony winner Viola Davis inhabits Michelle Obama with ferocious spirit and bawdy humor, pushing the president to more fully embrace their symbolic status of being the first Black first family.
Each of these women is obviously worthy of her own series (or season), and I often groaned when one’s story gave way to another. And at times during the 10 absorbing episodes (all directed by Susanne Bier), the parallels can be too neat, like when Eleanor’s attraction to reporter Lenora Hickok (Lily Rabe) plays out against President Obama’s ambivalence toward using his political capital to support same-sex marriage. “Explain to me why it’s not the same thing (as Jim Crow),” Michelle demands of her husband the Chief Executive. “Remind me of why you ran for President.”
Whether this actually happened or not, it’s juicy drama. Likewise, when Betty furiously tears into accidental president Gerald Ford for not warning her he was pardoning the disgraced President Nixon: “Do you realize how this makes you look? Do you realize how this makes our family look?” Or when Eleanor ambushes Franklin and his guests at a diplomatic dinner party with unwelcome reminders of the Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe who are not being allowed entry to the U.S.
O-T Fagbenle (The Handmaid’s Tale) nicely captures Barack Obama’s aloof charm, while Aaron Eckhart and Kiefer Sutherland give credible impersonations of Ford and Roosevelt, respectively. But this isn’t this story. It’s about the women who pushed back against their traditional role, often seen by the president’s cronies as political liabilities but proving essential to their mate’s legacy.
FDR could be describing them all when he says of Eleanor: “Proper is not a word I would use to describe you. Singular, maybe. Formidable. Relentless. Irreplaceable.” Brava.
The First Lady, Series Premiere, Sunday, April 17, 9/8c, Showtime
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