In honor of President's Day, I'm recommending this movie about one of my favorite fictional heads of state. That's President Andrew Shepherd of course, played by Michael Douglas in this Rob Reiner film, which is really more screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's film, as all his scripts are. This movie really served as the audition reel for The West Wing, actually (Martin Sheen is even the chief of staff here). Douglas is a widowed president who becomes interested in Annette Bening's feisty environmental lobbyist, and decides to start dating her. But what would happen if there was a single president who suddenly had a girlfriend? Sorkin gets it pretty much right, as the movie is infused with a Clinton-era mindset where all anyone's interested in is petty personal gossip. But Shepherd is a stand-up guy deep down, committed to liberal principles, and even though the romance is great (Bening and Douglas have fantastic chemistry), my favorite part of the movie is Douglas's big speech to the cameras at the end, where he vows to send a bill to Congress that outlaws all handguns in the United States. Ha, ha! Talk about a liberal fantasy. Can you imagine that happening in real life? Still, it's nice to dream about it.
Original Trailer:
