Thank You for Smoking
It feels funny to be writing on a movie called Thank You for Smoking on a site where there is a No Smoking Diary. It would be fun to read the No Smoking script or see the preview once you see TYFS; how two different minds think, create and build a story on the most dangerous legalized drug in this world – Cigarettes.
Though I have no clue on Anurag’s project, TYFS is about… a tobacco industry lobbyist. His battles. His life. His views. It’s quite an interesting concept, that can make you rub your hands with glee over a juicy spicy story that is waiting for you to unfold it.
The problem is TYFS ends up short and could serve as an ideal Sunday afternoon siesta companion, or perhaps that movie you watch from your lazyboy chair after a pretty heavy weekend brunch.
The story begins with Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) who is a successful lobbyist for the tobacco industry and easily wins battles where ever he goes, be it on a TV Show or a public debate with his flair for conviction and twisted logic. The problem is such a brilliant man is on the wrong side and even if you are a smoker you wish such a charming guy would move over to the right. Success is imminent and the tobacco baron (Robert Duvall) chooses Nick to lead a promotional campaign in Hollywood.
In between all this, the story focuses on Nick’s relationship with his son – which easily is one of the highlights of the movie. Joey Naylor (Cameron Bright) needs reasons to be convinced of the deeds and actions of his dad, and Nick spends considerable time and with patience lays out his clearly (yet twisted) way of seeing things in life. And as the story progresses you can see Joey becoming more and more impressed with his dad’s philosophy, to the point that he even imbibes them for use during discussions with his mother and his teacher in school.
But bad things in life are impossible to avoid and Nick gets conned by a television reporter who he’s been dating and many of tobacco industry’s secrets come out. How Nick with the help of his son, picks himself up and fights back in his usual charming, ultra-diplomatic way forms the rest of the movie.
The story, to many, may seem like some pro-smoking material, siding slightly towards the tobacco industry. Actually it does, to some extent, simply because the focus is on a tobacco industry lobbyist. The director seems to be having fun with him and his counterparts (Maria Bello) in other industries who like Nick walk the edge of the sword. It is fun no doubt.
But you wish things moved deeper. What you get is a simple scratching the surface along with some weird directions the story takes you to – like Nick’s kidnapping. It was a tremendous opportunity to create the pain and inner storms, a smoker attempting to quit, goes through, but in the scene where doctors urge to give up smoking, the team of TYFS gets away showing Nick throwing the cigarette pack away. Sure! If it was that easy, we would by now have been a smoke free world.
If the objective was to show the crusader riding away successfully into the setting sun, the team of TYFS forgot that inadvertently the Tobacco industry would pillion ride away too along with the star of their movie. Bad judgement. Inexcusable.
But on the other hand TYFS is a light comedy, though it touches just the surface of the industry of lobbyists (a mouth watering world of story ideas), it still manages to pull a couple strings that may accidentally have lodged deeper than intended.
Aaron Eckhart as Nick plays his role with flair. He seems to be having a good time and he doesn’t hold himself back. Cameron Bright as Eckhart’s son plays it right on the dot.
A brilliant supporting cast that includes Robert Duvall, Sam Elliot, Rob Lowe, Willian H. Macy, Maria Bello, David Koechner and J.K. Simmons, TYFS does have the right people playing in it, though the same can’t be said about the story. Still… it’s a…
B Minus. A Sunday afternoon movie watch, lying in your bed, toe wrestling with your loved ones. Nothing more nothing less.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
It was the first production effort by former colleagues of mine at PayPal… I think it did pretty well for them from that perspective. Having not seen it, but read many reviews, I think you are spot on.
Sounds interesting movie..and also a broad satire on tobacco industry or is it just a POV from Nick’s family?
Aptly reviewed sir…but i think coming from a first time director its really good..and mrs.cruise is added bonus;)