THENEWYORKER,M AY9, 2022 81
part her belief. The problem is that
“The First Lady” doesn’t dare to stray
from her viewpoint.
I
n its attempt to tell three histories,
the show scrambles the chronolo-
gies of its subjects’ White House ten-
ures as well as their larger biographies.
There are flashbacks nested in flash-
backs; a second suite of actors play the
women and their husbands when they
were young. Two time lines, which span
more than a century of activity, are ten-
uously anchored by theme. The writ-
ers have fabricated resonances, but these
only elide the specificity of each wom-
an’s life. It serves none of these figures,
and certainly not the viewer, to insin-
uate equivalence between a young or-
phaned Eleanor (Eliza Scanlen), sent
to boarding school in Britain; a young
Michelle ( Jayme Lawson), facing in-
stitutional racism on the South Side
of Chicago; and a young Betty (Kris-
tine Froseth), a dancer who trained
under Martha Graham, and whose
dreams of stardom were thwarted by
a bad first marriage and by alcoholism.
On occasion, “The First Lady” of-
fers insights into the eccentricity of
political marriage. That’s not to say
that any of the Presidents are well
written or capably performed. Kiefer
Sutherland, Aaron Eckhart, and O-T
Fagbenle—as Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Gerald Ford, and Barack Obama, re-
spectively—struggle to give life to
waxen cartoons of ironic emasculation.
Still, scenes of compromise stand out
amid the two-dimensionality. Ander-
son’s pursed mouth (even tighter than
the mouth she uses for Margaret
Thatcher, on “The Crown”) breaks
when her character discovers corre-
spondence between her husband
and his longtime mistress; it breaks,
too, in the company of Eleanor’s own
lover, the reporter Lorena Hickok (Lily
Rabe). The Roosevelts’ marriage is
a détente, an alliance between politi-
cal operators. Pfeiffer and Eckhart,
meanwhile, give the Fords a sexual
chemistry that feels daring; when Ger-
ald pardons Richard Nixon, his deci-
sion disturbs the couple’s emotional
universe. Davis and Fagbenle, as the
Obamas, are the least successful pair-
ing. Their relationship is filtered only
through racial insecurity, with Mi-
chelle as the real-talk bully to Barack’s
dreamer. Playing Michelle is clearly a
burden for Davis. How do you sum-
mon a living titan, a figure who al-
ready plays herself so well? The actor
ultimately relies on mimicry, and make-
up—a parody of two-thousands cor-
porate glam, with the thin eyebrows
and the glossed lips. “The First Lady”
is not ready to puncture the hip gran-
diosity of the Obamas, instead leav-
ing the couple hazy and ill-defined.
It’s an offensive naïveté, considering
how artfully the Obamas have crafted
their modern legend.
Throughout the show, extraordi-
nary events—Pearl Harbor, Water-
gate, the Sandy Hook shooting—
are rendered as catalysts for personal
growth. “Anna, what happened?” El-
eanor asks her daughter, after rushing
into the West Wing. “The Japanese
have bombed Pearl Harbor,” Anna re-
sponds. “How bad?” “Very bad.” But,
on the other hand, the tragedy gave
Eleanor an opportunity to address the
frightened populace, so, as the series
seems to imply, not all bad? After a
few minutes of this, we are jolted to
another lady, another dilemma. En-
couraging her husband to stand up to
his white liberal base, Michelle Obama
speechifies, “We’ve been called nigga
in every way possible. For once, let’s
be the niggas.” The rushed tempo has
a way of caricaturing what is meant
to be serious.
Sometimes you ought to allow a
bad-wig costume drama to be a bad-
wig costume drama. The triumphal-
ist vibe of “The First Lady” penetrates
every element of its world, down to
the major-chord score. This sort of
big-name vehicle, reeking of Holly-
wood hubris, can sometimes take
on cult-classic status owing to its
concentration of bad performances
from great actors—or, as in the case
of “The First Lady,” its one good per-
formance amid a sea of middling ones.
If such status is conferred on this show,
it’ll be because of Michelle Pfeiffer.
Anderson and Davis are regulars on
the grandstanding-bio-pic circuit, so
they have a bag of tricks to pull from
when giving flesh to myths. Pfeiffer
is acting in a different milieu alto-
gether. When she speaks the wretched
dialogue, she tempers the awkward-
ness, adding a sigh, a pause. Her Betty
Ford is a study of the woman’s fears
and attractions, a suggestive riff on
themes of addiction, frustrated free-
dom, and wifely melancholy. When
Betty’s compulsions spin out of con-
trol, and her family stages an inter-
vention, Pfeiffer nudges the script
away from the written psycho-biddy
mania, deciding to show us, instead,
controlled rage. It’s real.
THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2022 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
VOLUME XCVIII, NO. 11, May 9, 2022. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for four planned combined issues, as indicated on the issue’s cover, and other com-
bined or extra issues) by Condé Nast, a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Eric Gillin, chief business
officer; Lauren Kamen Macri, vice-president of sales; Rob Novick, vice-president of finance; Fabio B. Bertoni, general counsel. Condé Nast Global: Roger Lynch, chief executive officer;
Pamela Drucker Mann, global chief revenue officer and president, U.S. revenue; Anna Wintour, chief content officer; Jackie Marks, chief financial officer; Elizabeth Minshaw, chief of staff;
Sanjay Bhakta, chief product and technology officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.
POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE NEW YORKER, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE
INQUIRIES: Write to The New Yorker, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037, call (800) 825-2510, or e-mail [email protected]. Give both new and old addresses as printed on most recent
label. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your
subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable you are dissatisfied with your subscription, you may receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy
of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to The New Yorker, 1 World Trade Center, New
York, NY 10007. For advertising inquiries, e-mail [email protected]. For submission guidelines, visit http://www.newyorker.com. For cover reprints, call (800) 897-8666, or e-mail
[email protected]. For permissions and reprint requests, call (212) 630-5656, or e-mail [email protected]. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without
the consent of The New Yorker. The New Yorker’s name and logo, and the various titles and headings herein, are trademarks of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. To subscribe to other
Condé Nast magazines, visit http://www.condenast.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would
interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, advise us at P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037, or call (800) 825-2510.
THE NEW YORKER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS,
UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED
MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS
SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY THE NEW YORKER IN WRITING.
