Synopsis
A look at the life of Cecil Gaines who served eight presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Forest WhitakerCecil Gaines
- Oprah WinfreyGloria Gaines
- David OyelowoLouis Gaines
- John CusackRichard Nixon
- Jane FondaNancy Reagan
- Cuba Gooding Jr.Carter Wilson
- Mariah CareyHattie Pearl
- Terrence HowardHoward
- Lenny KravitzJames Holloway
- Aml AmeenCecil Gaines (15)
- 88
Slant Magazine
With the film, Lee Daniels quietly pushes his talent for hashing out visceral, violent emotions into unexpected dramatic terrain. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
As Cecil, Whitaker is mesmerizing. The actor seems to shrink into his imposing frame, summoning a performance of quiet, bottled-up force. - 75
IndieWire
The Butler carries an authenticity that sustains it through its cloying stretches. - 70
Variety
There’s no denying, though, that Daniels knows how to push an audience’s buttons, and as crudely obvious as The Butler can be...it’s also genuinely rousing. By the end, it’s hard not to feel moved, if also more than a bit manhandled. - 70
New York Magazine (Vulture)
Crudely powerful. You can object to the thuggish direction and the script that’s a series of signposts, but not the central idea, which is genuinely illuminating. - 64
Film.com
Full of truth that's ultimately diluted by a lack of focus. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
Inspiring if not inspired, Lee Daniels' The Butler is a sort of Readers' Digest overview of the 20th century American civil rights movement centered on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary perspective. - 60
Time Out
Viewers familiar with Daniels’s idiosyncratically vulgar work might be disappointed that there’s little here that compares to Nicole Kidman loosing a yellow stream on Zac Efron’s jellyfish stings in "The Paperboy" (2012).