When I watch a political biopic, I start with my fourfold classification of political fables: heroic, sacrificial, ironic, and tragic. It was clear in ten minutes that Reagan exemplified the heroic, in which the protagonist overcomes challenges, rises to prominence, and enhances the wellbeing of the people he serves. The movie begins with the attempted assassination in March 1981. It then segues to its main narrative device, a retired Russian intelligence analyst explaining to a young protégé how Ronald Reagan was able to win the Cold War. The narrative arc is that Ronald Reagan realizes early in life that Communism is evil, fights it in the film industry in the Forties, and deals it a mortal blow in the Eighties, climaxing with his famous speech in Berlin (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”). Not only the West, but the entire world, is better off.

Heroic or Hagiographic?

If the narrative arc of a story is heroic, the challenge for filmmakers (script writers, directors, actors) is how to make it compelling. The answer, according to well-known analyst and teacher of screenwriting Robert McKee, is a quest in which a protagonist, to achieve their object of desire, must overcome a series of escalating challenges. The difficulty of the quest will depend on factors such as the cards the protagonist is dealt early in life, the inner demons the protagonist must battle, the intentions and power of opponents, and how consequential the struggle is. One need only mention the names Martin Luther King Jr. or Winston Churchill to understand my point.

The film Reagan combines vignettes from the fortieth president’s life with a focus on his struggle with the Soviet Union. But it fails to embody much of the quest framework. Part of the problem is that the protagonist was dealt a hand of aces: handsome, intelligent, talented (one of his talents being a photographic memory), athletic, and poised. Achieving success is almost effortless. The film chronologically recounts Reagan’s many achievements: the lifeguard who saved 77 lives with no drownings on his watch, popular radio announcer, movie star and President of the Screen Actors’ Guild, lifelong loving husband of Nancy, spokesman for General Electric, Governor of California who stood up to the radical left, and the President who won the Cold War. The film was produced by Mark Joseph, whose production company specializes in films with Christian and conservative themes and thus gives the audience a life of a secular saint.

Most critics consider it hagiography and 80 percent of 54 critics’ whose reviews were posted on Rotten Tomatoes panned it. Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail rightly calls it “135 minutes of rah-rah Reagan boosterism that zips through the man’s life with a bizarrely impressive speed.” The New York Times’s Glenn Kenny judges it “a plodding film, more curious than compelling.”

A Different Film

How could Reagan have been a more compelling and provocative film? I have several alternative suggestions.

First, the film could have paid more attention to Reagan’s inner life, in particular his response to the adversity he did face: his divorce from Jane Wyman, his acting career tanking so that he had to do every commercial he was offered, his losing the 1976 Republican nomination to President Ford, and the attempted assassination. The movie puts in Reagan’s mouth a religious mantra – God has a purpose for everything that happens – which unfortunately replaces introspection.

Second, the film could have dealt with some of the shortcomings of Reagan’s presidency such as the implicit racism of its war on drugs or its neglect of the AIDS crisis. AIDS is mentioned in passing by showing clips of protests rather than exploring the shortcomings of Reagan and his administration’s response.

Third, instead of treating the entire arc of Reagan’s life so superficially, the director and screenwriter could have narrowed and deepened their focus. The obvious choice would have been the struggle with the Soviet Union. As it is, the film treats the Soviet Union as a paper tiger, which diminishes the difficulty and importance of Reagan’s quest. Had it paid more attention to the Cold War, the film could have depicted Reagan’s struggle with those in his administration who advocated peaceful coexistence or his behind-the-scenes collaboration with Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) to make Poland a wedge to split the Soviet empire. All this material is readily available in Paul Kengor’s 2007 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, which was one of the sources for the film.

Fourth, the film treats the fall of Communism as, to quote Francis Fukuyama’s long-since-repudiated meme, “the end of history.” The imagined Soviet analyst narrator and his protégé, while set in 2024, only look backwards to understand Reagan’s victory. But much has happened in Russia since the fall of Communism. Russia is a more serious adversary for the west than the Soviet Union because Vladimir Putin and his leadership cadre have indeed learned some lessons. Capitalism has brought some dynamism to Russia’s economy. Russia is a major exporter of resources, despite NATO embargoes. Russia has weaponized technology, both in military hardware (the Kinzhal missile) and IT software (bot farms intervening in US elections). This point could have been made in the film in the dialogue between the Russian analyst and his protégé. It would have undercut the hagiography to make it clear that Reagan’s victory, while significant, was incomplete.

Should You See It?

I would not encourage readers of this blog to see Reagan, with the following exception. If you are a lifelong fan of Ronald Reagan, and if you are an evangelical Christian, you’ll love this film. But the factionalism of cyberspace would suggest that this doesn’t describe most of my readers.