The Butler (2013)
The Bulter is a American historical drama movie who released on August 16, 2013 in United State. Directed by Lee Daniels and produced by Pamela Oas Williams, Laura Ziskin, Lee Daniels, Buddy Patrick and Cassian Elwes. It starring
- Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines
- Oprah Winfrey as Gloria Gaines
- Mariah Carey as Hattie Pearl
- John Cusack as Richard Nixon
- Jane Fondaas Nancy Reagan
- Cuba Gooding Jr. as Carter Wilson
- Terrence Howard as Howard
- Lenny Kravitz as James Holloway
- James Marsden as John F. Kennedy
- David Oyelowo as Louis Gaines
- Vanessa Redgrave as Annabeth Westfall
- Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan
- Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson
- Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Clarence Williams III as Maynard
This 132 minutes movie is loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen, a 34-year-old butler in the White House during eight presidents. Allen’s top priority was to make the White House a comfortable residence for each chief executive and his family.[1] In fact, it is so loosely based that it is difficult to decide which parts of the plot are based on the actual life of Allen, and which parts are added for dramatic effect.
Plot
The movie opens with Cecil Gaines working with his father and mother on a cotton plantation in 1926. The white plantation owner raped his mother and the father is shot dead immediately afterwards.The grandmother of the cotton plantation owner felt sorry for him and then made Cecil a servant who worked in the house. Cecil is then trained to be a houseman, ultimately to run away and learn how to become a butler. It was extremely difficult to be a black butler in those times because one could not respond to conversations, which often included racist remarks and prejudice.
In 1957, he is offered and accepts a position as an under butler at the White House among the black domestic staff, after a White House administration staffer sees and is impressed with his demeanor and work at the Excelsior Hotel in Washington DC.
While Presidents come and go, from Eisenhower through Reagan, Cecil and the rest of the butler staff remain, serving in the background as firsthand but silent witnesses to history and the inner workings of the Oval Office while the civil rights movement unfolds. Regardless of his personal opinions, Cecil remains fiercely committed to his duties at the White House, but tensions grow at home as his sons become affected by the social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960s and 70s. Facing these disruptions to her family, as well as Cecil's neglect as he tends to his First Family, Gloria turns to alcohol and the embrace of a neighbor. As he grapples with his family's actions and his own conscience, Cecil finds himself at the crossroads of previously unimaginable social change. [2]