Thank You for Smoking
Let us now praise the children of famous men. Twelve years ago Christopher Buckley–whose father, William F., has become synonymous with postwar conservative philosophy–published Thank You for Smoking, a rip-roaring satire of Washington spin doctors. Now Jason Reitman–whose liberal father, Ivan, directed such Hollywood blockbusters as Stripes and Ghostbusters–has made his feature-length directorial debut with an adaptation of Buckley’s novel. Given their respective pedigrees, viewers are entitled to wonder whether Reitman, who also wrote the screenplay, will have mutilated Buckley’s book beyond recognition. But as the substantially faithful movie version demonstrates, the story of Thank You for Smoking resides in that libertarian netherworld where the far left and the far right march shoulder to shoulder.
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Libertarianism is still legal, as far as I know, though like smoking it seems to have been banned from public places. For all the lip service paid to freedom, and all the blood being spilled to vouchsafe it for the Arab world, few Americans seem interested in fully exploring the concept. The soggy center is intent on regulating guns, gambling, narcotics, pornography, prostitution, and over-the-counter antihistamines. This misguided impulse to seek protection from ourselves is at its most absurd when people file frivolous lawsuits blaming their own drunkenness or obesity on corporations. As most parents can tell you, every measure of personal freedom carries with it an equal measure of personal responsibility.
Naylor’s real antagonist is the progressive Vermont senator Ortolan Finistirre–a thinly fictionalized Bernie Sanders–whose persnickety liberalism is nicely exemplified by the thermal socks he wears under his sandals. All the movie’s supporting characters are sublimely cast–Robert Duvall as an aging tobacco lion, Rob Lowe as a vain Hollywood superagent–and as Finistirre, William H. Macy is appropriately irritable. Naylor and Finistirre spend most of the movie dimly regarding each other in the media, but they face off at the climax, when the senator calls the spokesman to his subcommittee hearings on regulating tobacco. Finistirre has proposed that every box of smokes carry a skull-and-crossbones sticker, and he’s none too happy when Naylor, pointing out that the number one killer in America is cholesterol, suggests the same label be applied to every package of Vermont cheddar cheese.
