An immersion in the east wing of the White House. The First Lady, a Showtime miniseries in ten episodes available since Thursday on Paramount +, features the crossed destinies in historical order of Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford and Michelle Obama, respectively interpreted by Gillian Anderson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Viola Davis. An ambitious prestige drama that shows that being the wife of the President of the United States is one of the most thankless and frustrating roles on the planet.
The series created by Aaron Cooley and directed by Susanne Bier relates both, via flashbacks, the personal trajectory of these three First Ladies and their political journey in Washington. The First Lady shows how these wives of American presidents had to both provide unconditional support for the political career of their husbands and struggle to play this role while maintaining their identity.
Eleanor Roosevelt, the pioneer
The First Lady also highlights their differences. Eleanor Roosevelt, who served the longest, has, as the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, the distinction of knowing every corner of the White House even before her arrival in the East Wing. “It was really useful to have played Margaret Thatcher before. It made me more confident to play Eleonor. There are fewer filmed archives on Eleonor Roosevelt, I could not rely on a particular gesture. So I put my grain of salt. But the process is similar when it comes to research,” says Gillian Anderson, who 20 minutes met during a roundtable at CanneSeries.
While her couple is struggling due to the infidelities of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Kiefer Sutherland), she will give a political and media role to the First Lady. Right-hand man of her polio-stricken husband, she expects to help him write his speeches and get a job in his administration.
When an adviser tells her that her job is to be the First Lady, she retorts: “It’s not a job… It’s my situation”. And to add: “I am not delighted that my title refers to my gender rather than my skills”.
“Eleanor Roosevelt is a down to earth woman. Before she and her husband were in the White House, she was dedicated to serving others. She started a school in New York with friends, even when her husband was governor. She rode the bus and train, taught every day, and dedicated her funds and earnings to charity. Her life was dedicated to commitment,” recalls Gillian Anderson.
Betty Ford, the vulnerable
Unexpectedly dropped into the role following the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon, Betty Ford seems completely lost at first, a ghost in her own role.
However, she will learn to stand up to Gerald Ford’s chief of staff (Aaron Eckhart, seen in The Dark Knight: The Dark Knight), Donald Rumsfeld (Derek Cecil) and Dick Cheney (Rhys Wakefield) in the lead, who wish to silence her in view of her liberal opinions. On a personal level, she must deal with her addiction to painkillers and alcohol, which forged her legacy.
Michelle Obama, the fighter
“Four years from now, I don’t want to look back and ask myself, ‘What have I become living in this house?’ “says Michelle Obama, played by Viola Davis. High-flying professional long before her husband Barack Obama (OT Fagbenle seen in The Handmaid’s Tale) is elected, she is determined not to give up her identity and to defend the causes that are dear to her, such as access to health care for the most disadvantaged. On a personal level, she wants her daughters Malia and Sasha to have as normal an upbringing as possible and worries about the safety of her family, the first black family to live in the White House.
When the first African-American First Lady in history visits the east wing with Laura Bush, she spots a painting depicting black slaves. Seeing his confusion, Laura Bush says to him: “’You may think that you have nothing in common with the first ladies before you’, believe me when I say that we have all felt this. »
Is not “The Crown” who wants
There where The Crown skilfully mixes the intimate fantasy of its characters with the great story to which they belong, The First Lady however, the brushes get tangled up with somewhat disjointed intrigues. Eleanor, Betty and Michelle have all pushed the boundaries of what it means to be a First Lady, but in completely different ways. Bringing their three stories together in the same series even seems very artificial.
If Viola Davis captures the intonations of Michelle Obama and sometimes succeeds in releasing this mixture of heat and steel specific to this one, she tries so hard to control the movements of the face that she ends up grimacing. Gillian Anderson’s game, for her part, is downright hampered by Eleanor Roosevelt’s prominent dental prosthesis. Only Michelle Pfeiffer seems free in the Betty Ford costume. She embodies it so comfortably that we often forget the actress.
Whether The First Lady deserves a look all the same, it’s because she reminds us that Michelle Pfeiffer is a huge actress who we no longer see enough on screen and that Betty Ford was all at the same time vulnerable, imperfect and fascinating!