REEL REFLECTIONS

A REVIEW OF "THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING

David Greiser

One of the best places to gain access to the postmodern turn in pop culture is, I believe, the world of contemporary comedy. Stand-up comedy, along with satirical TV variety shows—such as "Dennis Miller," "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live"—exemplify the genre. Much of the programming on cable TV’s Comedy Channel is drenched in a kind of cynical, glib, and soulless humor in which the aim is less often social commentary and more often the laugh for its own sake.

"Thank You For Smoking" is a film comedy birthed and steeped in a glib irony. Yet it also tries to find a moral footing, and its moral quest is revealing.

Directed by first-timer Jason Reitman (the 29-year-old son of "Ghostbusters" creator Ivan Reitman), "Thank You For Smoking" is the autobiography of a professional shill. Nick Naylor is a smooth-talking, funny, likable lobbyist for Big Tobacco. Nick’s job consists of spinning the findings of the "research" done by the tobacco industry-funded Academy of Tobacco Studies, all of which conveniently downplay the dangers of smoking. Nick’s aim is to create a cushion of legal safety for the major tobacco companies. "Michael Jordan plays basketball," Nick explains in one voice-over. "Charles Manson kills people. I talk."

Nick knows he is good at talking. "You know that guy who can pick up any girl? I’m him—on crack." The chief ethical value in Nick’s life is, as one might expect, personal freedom. Defending the freedom to choose one’s own lifestyle sometimes requires the championing of unpopular causes, such as the freedom to smoke and to sell tobacco products. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that smoking is harmful, freedom’s defense requires "a certain moral flexibility that is beyond the reach of most people," as Nick explains to his son.

Nick’s relationship to his son is an important movie subplot. Early we learn that Nick’s wife divorced him, presumably over Nick’s career choice. Slick-talking Nick convinces his ex to allow their son to accompany dad on a work-related trip to Hollywood. Along the way Nick schools his son in the subtle techniques of debate, slyly pointing out the distinctions between argument and morality. "That’s the beauty of argument," he explains. "If you’re good, even when you’re wrong you’re always right."

"Thank You for Smoking" is filled with wickedly funny and smug dialogue. "Why is America the greatest country on earth?" asks Nick’s son, looking up from his homework. "Because of our endless appeals system," Nick replies in a heartbeat. Part of Nick’s fatherly instruction includes coaching his son in the art of debate. All the while, Nick drops subtle clues to his son about the actual risks involved in the use of tobacco.

Once a week, Nick repairs to a leather-stuffed bar with his cronies, the M.O.D. Squad (Merchants of Death). Alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey (played by Maria Bello), gun lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner), along with Nick, commiserate and compare notes on the number of fatalities their organizations have caused each month.

Some of the most effective satire in "Thank You for Smoking" pokes fun at the anti-smoking lobby. Character actor William H. Macy portrays Vermont Senator Ortolan Finistierre, a bumbling, self-righteous environmentalist whose office desk is covered with Vermont maple syrup bottles. The senator’s chief anti-smoking strategy is to introduce a bill that would require every cigarette pack to display a skull and crossbones. Such a symbol is better than words, he explains, because tobacco barons want "those who do not speak English to die." At a Senate hearing on the bill, Nick counters the senator by claiming that the state of Vermont also must want people to die, since it produces so much of the cheese that is clogging American arteries.

Despite Nick’s veneer, the semblance of a conscience shows up at times. When the president of one tobacco company and czar of Big Tobacco (Robert Duvall, dressed like Colonel Sanders) sends him to buy the silence of the cancer-laden Marlboro Man (Sam Elliot), Nick appears genuinely ambivalent about offering a bribe to buy silence.

With his son listening intently, Nick negotiates with this man whose life has been shortened by the product he embodied. I won’t give away the outcome of the conversation, except to say that the scene heightens the film’s moral ambivalence.

Probably the greatest strength in "Thank You for Smoking" lies in its implied insistence that moral hypocrisy exists on both sides of every ideological debate. Our major political parties would do well to listen in on this discussion.

The modernist in me chafes over movies in which style triumphs over substance; in "Thank You," funny dialogue overpowers the "point." Yet even if the point is only that all crusaders are morally compromised, then an investment in this film is worthwhile.

—David Greiser, Souderton, Pennsylvania,has said at times that if he knew God did not exist, he would have tried to become a stand-up comedian. In July, he concludes 10 years of preaching in Souderton, Pennsylvania, and becomes Director of the Pastoral Training program at Hesston College in Kansas.