First Lady

Going into the movie, despite only reading a brief synopsis, I had some hopes that this would be at least a decent romantic comedy. The widow of the President decides, to help her late husband's VP to win re-election, to run as his First Lady. It sounded like an interesting premise. Unfortunately, the film did not live up to those hopes... at all

When the production logo finished playing, a poorly rendered book appears on the screen with a cloudy sky background and my first thought was that it was another production company logo. Then the realization hit me that this was the start of the movie and my expectations came crashing down. What followed the opening narration was a poorly written slog of a film. For a comedy, it was not very amusing and if it was supposed to be political satire, it came off more as the writer not understanding how American Politics and Government works than an actual critique of the system. Even the claims of US History made by the protagonist, who is supposed to be a former History professor, did not make a lot of sense. The 'jokes' about the generation divide in the country didn't particularly land and just came off as the writer wanting to put buzzwords in to make the film sound relevant.

It's a shame that the film goes out of its way to be as apolitical as it can with characters who should have very big political views. This wouldn't be too much of a problem except for the whole plot point about the protesters not knowing what they were protesting because they were just being paid to protest. The whole resolution of that plot point should have been used when writing the actual film because as it stands, I see this film as one of those protesters, just standing there protesting not because they care about a certain political issue, but because they need to be paid.

The other big thing that bothered me had to do with the main love interest of the film and all of the costuming choices with him and everyone associated with him. He is supposed to be the king of a random country, but he doesn't even have the power to make sure his personal military guard don't look like a bunch of slobs? He doesn't even have the power to make them tuck in their ill-fitting button down shirts? I understand this movie didn't have much of a budget, but it doesn't even look like they even tried to make any of the costumes look anything but cheap. Not only do the costumes look cheap but the actual sets are very obviously just filmed in someone's house, to the point where you can not tell if a scene is taking place at the White House or some soccer moms living room. The lighting also suffers from looking cheap as well.

The big question I left with this movie was how it even ended up in the movie theater at all. If it wasn't for the fact that all of the characters were in their mid-30s and older, I would've sworn that this was just something that would've premiered on the Disney Channel. This film takes no chances and plays it safe on anything that would even come close to being controversial. Even the political issues that are brought up are so generic that its hard to even tell there's even a conflict to begin with. The film even goes so far as to tell you there's conflict between characters instead of actually showing you any conflict.

Ultimately, this film just plays off as a romantic comedy that doesn't know how to be funny... nor does it know how to tell a story. And in the end, all it is is a waste of time and space that should have gone to something that actually cares to tell a story.