Irresistible Parent Guide

“An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle but without the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.” So wrote George Bernard Shaw, and director Jon Stewart was sufficiently impressed with the quote to include it in his film, Irresistible. Obviously outraged by runaway election spending in the USA, Stewart is using his movie to satirize the entire system, presumably in hopes of sparking a discussion on the topic.

Stewart would be more effective in reaching his goal if the movie were actually funny. He’s certainly assembled the right cast – headlined by Steve Carrell as Gary Zimmer, a political operative with strong ties to the Democratic party. Seeing a YouTube clip of a farmer and retired marine, Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper), making an impassioned plea at a town meeting on behalf of undocumented residents, Zimmer decides that this man is the future of the Democratic party in the Midwest. Flying to Wisconsin, Gary Zimmer recruits Colonel Hastings to run as Mayor of Deerlaken. But Gary isn’t alone in his interest in the race. Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne), a ruthless GOP operative arrives in short order, and the two political strategists launch a political arms race and spending spree. As the two rivals use the mayoral election to score points over each other, they fail to consider that the people of Deerlaken might have their own political priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican or Democratic parties….

Irresistible does not live up to its name – it’s certainly not irresistible and it’s often just plain irritating. One of the film’s biggest weaknesses is the cardboard caricatures that stand in for main characters. Gary’s a coastal liberal who eats pretentious food and patronizes visible minorities and Faith is a cartoonishly nasty, highly sexualized conservative woman who is interchangeable with any Disney villainess. It would be a lot easier to care about the movie if we cared about these two people. As it is, all they do is confirm the prejudices of viewers who dislike the stereotypical supporters of the “other” political party.

The movie also contains content that pushes it into the Restricted category. It features some unpleasant sexual banter between Gary and Faith as well as lots of profanity – over 80 uses of coarse and sexual language, including 30 sexual expletives. This is not a movie you want to watch if swearing makes you flinch.

The most frustrating part of watching Irresistible is knowing that there’s a better movie buried in there somewhere. The plot twist at the end is clever, and almost makes up for the multitudinous failings of the rest of the film. The production also addresses issues that need to be tackled – runaway election spending and negative campaigning. Sadly, despite these pluses, this movie is easy to resist and doesn’t get my vote.