The 1999 comedy, co-written by Sheryl Longin and director Andrew Fleming, satirizes what is declared in the opening moments as one of \u201cthe great mysteries of the twentieth century\u201d \u2013 the identity of Watergate informant Deep Throat \u2013 by imagining Deep Throat as two fictitious teenage girls, Arlene (Michelle Williams) and Betsy (Kirsten Dunst). Still outstanding actresses of their generation, Williams was co-starring on Dawson\u2019s Creek<\/em> at the time, while Dunst\u2019s The Virgin Suicides<\/em>, her first collaboration with director Sofia Coppola, premiered at Cannes two months before Dick<\/em>\u2019s release. On the surface, the premise of two ditzy teens taking down the Nixon administration appears to make them the butt of the joke, but Dick<\/em> imagines Watergate\u2019s villains and heroes to be equally prone to petty squabbling and vaingloriousness. CIA agent Mark Felt\u2019s name remained a mystery until 2005<\/a>, though Carl Bernstein\u2019s ex-wife Nora Ephron guessed, and famously blabbed about it for years without being believed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dick <\/em>has been on my mind because veteran journalist Bob Woodward, immortalized by Robert Redford in 1976\u2019s All The President\u2019s Men<\/em>, waited until September \u2013 right before the release of his new book \u2013 to reveal that on February 7th, Trump stated that he knew the virus was \u201cdeadly\u201d<\/a> and airborne, while publicly downplaying the threat and discouraging the use of mask-wearing to reduce transmission. Over 225,000 Americans have died, millions have lost their jobs, and the pandemic continues to spread. Woodward\u2019s decision to stay silent until his book launch cuts deep because it\u2019s a betrayal of who we believe Bob Woodward to be: someone who holds the President to account so thoroughly that he has to leave office. But that is part hindsight and part Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Artistic liberties often flatter and eclipse reality in the public imagination. Redford optioned All the President\u2019s Men <\/em>while the investigation was still ongoing<\/a>. His Woodward and Dustin Hoffman\u2019s Bernstein are heroic journalists who put pursuit of the truth over their egos. Dick<\/em>\u2019s journalists are not heroes, nor the protagonists. Will Ferrell (then of Saturday Night Live<\/em>) and Bruce McCulloch (The Kids in the Hall<\/em>, sporting a feathered wig) riff on Redford and Hoffman\u2019s performances, down to the way they eye each other across their respective Washington Post <\/em>desks. They bicker, wrestle over the phone, and revel in the glory that comes with their scoop. Dick<\/em> opens with a modern-day TV interview of the duo, who decline to disclose Deep Throat\u2019s identity. Coming to blows over the secret, Woodward tells Bernstein, \u201cYou smell like cabbage!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dick<\/em> has a lot of fun connecting the dots in this alternate history. Arlene (who lives in the Watergate) and Betsy intercept G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer) while entering a contest to win a date with teen idol Bobby Sherman, leaving the tape on the door that alerts security to the burglars\u2019 presence. On a class trip to the White House, they spot Liddy with the C.R.E.E.P. list stuck to his shoe, but assume \u201call the people on that list must be creeps.\u201d The hijinks escalate as Nixon\u2019s men try to keep the teens from understanding what they\u2019ve seen. Hoping to distract them, Nixon (Dan Hedaya) makes the girls White House dog walkers. That access allows them to spot underlings shredding documents (earning them promotions to the President\u2019s \u201csecret youth advisors\u201d), discover the Nixon tapes (where Arlene spends exactly 18.5 minutes professing her love to \u201cDick\u201d), and unknowingly serve world leaders pot-laced cookies (which Betsy\u2019s brother suggests made Nixon paranoid). They revel in their new roles, taking credit for asking the president to end the Vietnam War. Like Nora Ephron, they immediately blab, yet are not believed by their family and friends. Though Woodward and Bernstein are grateful for the scoop, keeping the source of their information secret is not to protect Arlene and Betsy, but an act of vanity. As Woodward admits, \u201cIt\u2019s too embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Dick <\/em>and the Trump presidency are rife with buffoons, criminals, and revelations about the president\u2019s wrongdoing. Speaking with a man legendarily credited with ending one presidency, though baffling to a reasonable person, fits with Trump\u2019s narcissism and fame obsession. A 1976 profile, six months after the release of All The President\u2019s Men<\/em>, opens by comparing Trump\u2019s looks favorably to Robert Redford\u2019s<\/a>. Fame also gave Woodward the option of saving his damning Trump quotations for the book deal. If Ferrell\u2019s portrayal had saturated the public consciousness as much as Redford\u2019s has, would Woodward\u2019s months of silence be as disappointing? Maybe it\u2019s naive to hold someone to the standards of their Hollywood-polished image. Or at least the prestige picture version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dick<\/em>, in its farcical reimagining of one of America\u2019s greatest political scandals, lays bare how so much of what we collectively experience lies in the hands of a few arrogant men and their self-motivated choices. The difference between comedy and tragedy is how those choices are interpreted and disseminated to the public, whether through journalism or art. The stakes are even higher now, the losses grimmer, and no one believes Trump would have the decency to resign. The absurdity of it all is enough to make you cry. Dick <\/em>can laugh at it, because it\u2019s farther removed from its subject than All The President\u2019s Men<\/em>. We\u2019re still in it, and we don\u2019t know yet how many of us will make it out alive. ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/dick2-1024x566.jpg\")
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