Strongly acted by a cast top-lined by Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and David Oyelowo, “The Butler” has its share of strong dramatic moments in a story inspired by the real-life career of a White House employee who served eight presidential administrations for a total of 34 years from 1952 to 1986.
Written by Danny Strong (HBO’s excellent “Recount” and “Game Change”), “The Butler” cheerfully abandons specific reality, with its main characters — Cecil Gaines (Whitaker), his wife Gloria (Winfrey) and their son Louis (Oyelowo) — crafted as composites to allow a wide swath of history to fit tidily into one family’s tumultuous story.
Getting involved in this kind of general audience material is something new for the director, a lover of excess (“Precious” as well as “The Paperboy”) who candidly commented in publicity material: “As a filmmaker I really had to restrain myself. It’s hard to do a PG-13 movie being Lee Daniels.”