Cinema: Thank you for smoking

A happily cynical and addictive comedy

“Thank you for smoking” is a happy effective (and addictive…) cynical comedy. Satirical, it follows the work of Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), who is a tobacco industry lobbyist and who tries, at the same time, to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son. He has a difficult and contradictory task: promoting cigarette smoking with intelligence, good looks and nice words (or at least the freedom to choose) in a time when health hazards caused by smoking have become headlines and a concern for the public opinion. All goes well until a beautiful journalist comes in the way and betrays Nick's sexually-achieved trust, making Nick’s world collapsing. But, “there's always one more coffin nail in Nick's pack”...

The film is highly recommendable, if nothing because it is quite enjoyable, very effective, fresh and always keeps you glued to the screen, waiting for more intelligent and satirical moments. The actors are excellent and very effective, in particular Eckhart himself. He has earned considerable acclaim for many of his roles, including “Erin Brockovich” with Julia Roberts or Neil LaBute's controversial film “In the company of men”. It seems he is quite “fashionable” again these days, playing in many different movies, such the “Black Dahlia” (see previous post), coming out soon in Europe.

Jason Reitman, the director, achieves a fresh and effective, addictive cinema. The film is quite cynical I would say, in relation to the world of lobbying, even though it can be said that it “defends” the right to smoke, or at least the right for pacific coexistence and mutual acceptance between smokers and non-smokers. But it does it in an intelligent way. The cynicism however, goes a bit far, to my understanding, when it brings in the “alcohol lobby” and the “lobby of the gun industry”, together with the tobacco lobby, as the M.O.D. squad (Merchants of death). In particular when the deaths caused by guns and by alcohol are made ridiculous, when compared with deaths due to road accidents, for instance. To my understanding that is quite dangerous, because, if smoking or drinking can be acceptable as a personal choice (as long as they do not bring negative implications for others), guns and the deaths caused by guns can certainly not be considered as a personal choice and should therefore not be mixed in a satirical way with tobacco…

It was probably not the intention of Reitman to “excuse” the use of guns. However, smoking comes out of the film quite well, if not quite glamorous, as when Hollywood contributed to give it a cool and romantic image. All in all a highly entertaining piece of cinema, go for it.
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