BEFORE: From a film about an ex-First Lady to a film about an ex-President. Both are fictional, but I'll get back to real Presidents soon enough. Linking from "Guarding Tess", Shirley Maclaine was also in "Postcards from the Edge" with Gene Hackman (last seen in "Wyatt Earp").
THE PLOT: A US president who has retired after two terms in office returns to his hometown of Mooseport, Maine and decides to run for Mayor against another local candidate.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Campaign" (Movie #1,361), "My Fellow Americans" (Movie #332)
AFTER: Hmm, what year was this made? 2004? The ex-President, Monroe Cole, keeps comparing himself to Pres. Clinton, but there's no mention of George W. Bush. Is he supposed to be a Bush analog? I think that Bush senior came from Maine, no? But W. always claimed Texas as his home state. Oh, well, I guess this is just a fictional president, and we're supposed to leave it at that.
This President Cole got divorced while in his 2nd term (something that's never happened, Reagan was the only divorced President, and that was years before taking office) and his wife got the house in Maryland, so he takes up residence in their Maine summer home. The locals approach him after the death of the mayor, and convince him to run for the office, which would conveniently also establish his residency there, so his ex-wife can't claim that home also.
This sets up a contest with a local hardware store owner who's also asked to run, and for good measure there's also a love triangle, with the President eyeing his girlfriend, and she plays along since the hardware guy is reluctant to propose. It's all a convenient enough set-up for conflict, but it never gets really nasty, like things did in "The Campaign". And in that case, nasty was funny.
Since the rivalry instead toggles between respectful and friendly (except in a rare instance), this sort of never rises above a pleasant-enough character study. Or maybe it was created more as a writing exercise, since at the start of their conflict they both want to win the election, and then because of some plot contrivances, at the end neither seems to want the position.
NITPICK POINT: The first of several character u-turns is the most jarring - the ex-President mentions that he's looking forward to relaxing in the country, putting his feet up and reading the newspaper without being disturbed - yet he leaps at the first chance to get back into the political game. Was he lying or just being inconsistent? Then he's mulling over speaking fees, book deals, and honorary degrees, all of which may be typical for a retired President, but those lucrative plans are immediately scrapped in favor of a mayoral position that probably pays relatively little. Huh?
Also starring Ray Romano (last seen in "Funny People"), Maura Tierney (last seen in "Forces of Nature"), Marcia Gay Harden (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Christine Baranski (last seen in "Reversal of Fortune"), Rip Torn (last not-seen in "Men in Black 3"), Fred Savage, with a cameo from Edward Herrmann (last seen in "Intolerable Cruelty").
RATING: 4 out of 10 golf carts
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