Thank You For Smoking (Movie Review)

This film — perhaps Jason Reitman's biggest release to date — isn't as good as Capote, but I enjoyed it quite a bit more.

But I'll reserve my thoughts on the disproportionate relationship between expectation and enjoyment for another entry. For now:

Back to the show.

Thank You For Smoking (2006) isn't so much a film about cancer sticks (and the lobbyists who promote them) as it is a blow against "spin" in general. And it's a little bit about taking sides, too. For example: all through the 70s (and even still in the 80s and 90s), cigarette ads were on the waning side of ubiquitous... they were still in magazines and on billboards, and even smokeless tobacco still had a television presence. And through the 70s and 80s, heroes and villains alike were lighting up the silver screen.

This is very seldom still the case. Tobacco giants haven't been "allowed" to advertise cigarettes on television since 1971, and protagonists are far less likely to smoke in movies (though we can't say the same for their foils). In short: the people who once made a ton of money on cigarette advertisements — television networks, movie producers, etc. — were among the first in line to condemn nicotine.

In other words, they helped make smoking cool, but once they came under fire for this — from other advertisers, fair-weather lawmakers, anti-smoking groups and such — they stopped. And even better: they seemed to completely forget how complicit they were in increasing cigarette sales in the first place. They washed their proverbial hands (if only Lady Macbeth had been so lucky!) and switched sides according to what brought in the best profits.

By alluding to this switch, Thank You for Smoking targets no single group. It exposes the hypocrisy of smoking lobbyists, anti-smoking lobbyists, lawmakers, smokers, nonsmokers, the media... you name it. No one is innocent... but no one is really a beast, either. Rather, everyone is just... trying to "pay their mortgage."

(Something even we apartment-dwellers can understand).

I wouldn't nominate this for any Oscars, but I enjoyed how this film was "spun" with a humorous slant. It has a message of sorts, but doesn't take itself too seriously (a seemingly impossible feat, when you consider the film points fingers in all directions). We see this again in the scenes where Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) — a lobbyist for "big tobacco" — sits down to dine with his two best friends: one a lobbyist for the NRA, and another for an alcoholic beverage conglomerate.

In another humorous twist, I was fairly amused that — in a film titled Thank You For Smoking — not a single character ever actually smokes a cigarette.

Correct me if I'm wrong.