Directed by: Aaron Sorkin
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Rated R, 129 minutes
Even now, eight months into the pandemic, we are still seeing movies released that were made before any of this year’s chaos unfolded. It’s surprising, then, that so many recent movies, from overtly political thrillers like “Antebellum” to quirky documentaries like “Spaceship Earth,” have actually spoken to this year’s events with almost serendipitous precision. But then, this is no coincidence. Everything that has happened this year, from the pandemic to the protests against police brutality, even the recent scramble to appoint a Supreme Court justice weeks before the election, has been, if not exactly predictable, then part of a larger historical trend.
“The Trial of the Chicago 7” articulates this more directly than any other movie this year has done. Like Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7” takes us to the Vietnam War, but focuses on the anti-war movement on the home front, and specifically the protests and riots that marked the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Framed as a courtroom drama during the early days of the Nixon administration, the movie explores the aftereffects of political turbulence, giving voice to the protesters who were blamed for the violence and the forces that sought to punish them.
Chief among these personalities is Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”), the leader of Students for a Democratic Society, and Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen, “Borat”), leader of the Youth International Party. The two organizers share the common goal of ending the war, but diverge in methods and demeanor. “[You got] a haircut for the judge?” Hoffman mocks Hayden during a recess; “That is so foreign to me.” “So is soap,” Hayden responds.
Brought together, along with several other organizers, to face trial for inciting riots in Chicago, Hoffman and Hayden can’t agree on how to handle the outrageous accusations levied against them and their followers. Their lawyer, William Kunstler (Mark Rylance, “Bridge of Spies”), has his hands full dealing with the irascible and unsympathetic Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”) and the well-prepared prosecutor Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “Inception”). And meanwhile, the Vietnam War rages on in the background, with Hayden’s colleagues updating a list of the names of killed soldiers every day. With the tension high and the stakes higher, and with no time left to plan, Hoffman and Hayden have to learn quickly how to face their charges without compromising their philosophical missions.
This proves easy (perhaps too easy) under Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”), in whose mind no problem is so big that it can’t be solved with an eloquent monologue. This has always been Sorkin’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness; as much as it satisfies politically progressive audiences to hear politically progressive characters explain in a few long sentences why progressive politics are necessary, his penchant for explanatory speeches has often left him preaching to the choir. What makes “The Trial of the Chicago 7” such a worthwhile watch, then, is that Sorkin finally tempers his Sorkinism. Led by Mark Rylance and Sacha Baron Cohen, everyone in the excellent ensemble still speaks in too-perfect dialogue, but they—and Sorkin—acknowledge that their words will only get them so far. “This is a political trial,” Hoffman says, almost beaming with the truism; their trial is theater, and so it should at least be good theater. In Sorkin’s hands, it is.
Sorkin’s may be a sunny view of American political progress—the movie boasts two different scenes where the courtroom erupts in applause, drowning out the mean old judge and the impotent bangs of his gavel—but in the final weeks of this tumultuous election that has made 2020 a harrowing year for us all, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is a fitting send-off into whatever future awaits us. Sorkin may not have predicted the sheer intensity of the year’s events, but he would have known his movie would come out as the election wound down, and knowing this, he ends his parting message with the image of Tom Hayden reading off the names of soldiers killed in action. Whoever wins, whatever happens, the story isn’t about the leaders who pass bills or lead marches or stand trial or show up on TV, but rather everyone else who lives, every day of the year, with the consequences of their decisions.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 10/23/2020.