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Diana Lieberman
Special to the Jewish News
ason Reitman made his first
appearance at the Sundance
Film Festival at the age of
19, premiering a short film called
Operation, a black comedy about the
theft of a kidney. Nine years later —
after creating several more mini-flicks
and launching a career in television
advertising — he was back at Sundance
this year with his first full-length film,
the iconoclastic comedy Thank You
For Smoking.
"We did it completely independently,
for $5 million, because we couldn't
find a studio to touch it," said Reitman.
"Since then, I think people have real-
ized it's a very accessible comedy"
Now distributed by Fox Searchlight,.
the movie opens Friday, March 31, in
metro Detroit.
Based on the 1994 satiric novel
of the same name by Christopher
Buckley, Thank You For Smoking fol-
lows the adventures of Nick Naylor,
the golden-tongued national spokes-
man for the tobacco industry. Naylor
— played by Aaron Eckhart (The
Company of Men) — is the ultimate
spin doctor, an amoral debate cham-
pion with the face of a choirboy and
the stamina of the Energizer Bunny.
Only Naylor's worshipful young
son, Joey, makes him slow down and
reconsider his life — but his self-doubt
last only a few seconds. He tells the
boy, winningly played by young actor
Cameron Bright, that just as murder-
ers need public defenders, big corpo-
rations need someone to defend them,
too. It's the American Way.
Later, when asked if he'd let his son
smoke, Nick says confidently that,
when Joey is old enough, he can make
tip
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March 30 • 2006
up his own mind.
Jon Stewart Generation
Like the book, Reitman's movie skew-
ers lobbyists and anti-smoking activ-
ists alike. The Marlboro Man takes a
bribe and an antismoking legislator
has suspiciously political motives.
The headmaster at Joey's school, St.
Euthanasius, despises Nick's profes-
sion — but is happy to take his money.
"I feel this is a movie for the John
Stewart generation:! said the 28-year-
old Reitman, on a recent publicity
jaunt to downtown Birmingham.
"It's_ about the way things really are,
not the Way we're told they should
be," Reitman said, comparing his
movie to' The Daily Show, Stewart's
anti-establishment Comedy Central
broadcast.
"And not only that — it relates to
what a lot of people are thinking right
now Most Americans feel they are
being told what to think, how to live,
by both political parties. This is a
movie that says people need to make
their own decisions and just take
responsibility for their actions:" -
Among the other featured perform-
ers in the film are veteran actors
Robert Duvall and Sam Elliott, along
with Maria Bello (A History of
Violence), William H. Macy (Fargo,
Pleasantville) and a pre-Tom Cruise
Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek). Rob
Lowe (The West Wing) has a broad
comedic turn as a fabulously wealthy
Hollywood agent.
Amazingly enough, for a movie
about smoking, no one on screen actu-
ally lights up. Reitman himself is a
nonsmoker, and, among the cast mem-
bers, only Maria Bello smokes, he said.
Fathers And Sons
Reitman not only directed Thank You