For a couple years there, Robert Redford got together with director Michael Ritchie (The Bad News Bears, Fletch) for some cynical, media-skewering, cinema vérité-heavy pictures about ambitious, naive young guns who discover how lonely and unrewarding reaching for the stars can get. They went on a savage spree with their first collab, 1972’s Oscar-winning political satire The Candidate. As an activist who gets roped into becoming the Democratic nominee during a California senatorial race (a bearded Peter Boyle leads his spin-spewing campaign team), Redford stays affable and charming even when his character is clearly disgusted by the political machine. It’s basically All the King’s Men with a protagonist who already knows that you may have to hang up your soul once you become a politician. Another great reminder from the ’70s that politics has always been a performative shitshow, The Candidate will screen at the Belcourt this weekend — in glorious 35 mm! On Saturday, retired actress Karen Carlson, who played Redford’s on-screen wife, will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.
Jan. 10-11 at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
