About

Elaine May received an Academy Award nomination for writing the screenplay for Primary Colors, an adaptation of a best-selling novel unmistakably and unabashedly mirroring Bill Clinton's rise to the presidency. Featuring an all-star cast, the film follows Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), a principled young adviser on the presidential campaign of the charismatic Governor Jack Stanton (John Travolta). As Burton enters the inner circle of the notoriously lecherous governor – including his wife Susan (Emma Thompson) and adviser Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton) – he is schooled in the dark arts of reputational whitewashing and smear. With typical wit and verve, Nichols and May paint an excoriating picture of the moral corruption of political strategy in contemporary America.

MA15+ | Medium level coarse language