After seeing Thank You for Smoking, I unhesitatingly recommended to my friends. It is an intelligent satire and a highly entertaining movie that avoids the too-easy tricks of vulgarity and shock. (Though there are a couple sexual encounters in the film, they are actually relevant to the plot.)
So after such praise, why did I title this post as I did? Because as good as it is, the film holds its punches. The satire works because Nick Naylor and Heather Hathoway are deliciously unscrupulous. They are the kind of characters we love to hate. In a satire like this, their moral poverty is precisely their virtue.
But the film tried to have it both ways: Nick is despicable, but he’s really a good guy at heart. He tries to be a good father. We see a touching montage of Nick taking his son to Los Angeles on a business trip with him. And after his world falls apart, it is his son who inspires him to get back in the game. Their relationship is clearly intended to be authentic and loving, which is exactly what is wrong with the whole thing. (more…)
