Script of the Week: Rodham by Young Il Kim
The story of a young Hillary Rodham as she struggles to choose between a career as a hot-shot Washington lawyer and the love of her life, an indomitable Bill Clinton. The script by Il Young Kim (nom de plume?) focuses on Hillary as she works in the committee to impeach Richard Nixon and weighs a marriage proposal from Bill.
The writer handles the subject matter delicately and cinematically. This is not a bio-pic in any sense. Kim aims for the essence of Hillary rather than a portrayal of historical truth. It allows him to delve deeply into the character’s emotional life and present us with a Hillary that is saucy, sexy, full of urges and contradictions. She is Hillary as we have not seen her before or at least not thought about before. The Bill we get is equally interesting but for inherently different reasons. He is exactly how we imagine him to have been. He loves Hillary madly but just can’t help being himself … totally and completely wrong for her. This dynamic keeps the script fun and makes it a compelling read even making us wonder (if only temporarily) if they’ll end up together.
We are informed by history of course. As I read this script there are moments so shock full of irony you can’t help but point them out and go “ha!”. A young Jim McDougal talking about waterfront property; A Bill that flirts with anything with two legs and a skirt; A young Hillary that believes a woman will be President before a black man; The countless characters who all know Hillary is going to be that woman; And most importantly the young ambitious lawyer who helps define an impeachment process that would decades later be used against her husband. History also informs how we cheer for Hillary, her eventual happiness is always in our sights. With so much information about her tumultuous marriage I couldn’t help but hope she would dump Bill and end up with the dashing Weld. I knew how the story would end of course, but my hoping is a trick the writer deserves immense credit for.
If there are any faults with Rodham is that Kim has chosen a period of time so compelling in its own right that it sometimes outshines the character’s story. Hillary’s time on the House Judiciary Committee that investigated Nixon is replete with intrigue and interesting characters, many of whom are still players in the current political stage. As a political junkie I ate it up and even found myself wishing that the story was solely focused on her work during that time. Alas, as we all know, for the Clintons work and self are never far apart and so it is with this script. At the end I do not know how accurate or well researched the script is, but I know it made me go running for the internet yearning to learn more. Any script that does that is good in my book.
Sometimes a Good Notion 