'Irresistible' Chooses An Inopportune Moment To Get Glib About Politics

Early in Irresistible, a film directed and written by Jon Stewart, we cut from your basic Washington weasel to what is labeled in a caption as "Rural America," and under that, "Heartland, USA." This wry joke suggests that ripping off this meaningless, cynical label slapped on the Wisconsin town we're about to visit will be the film's purpose. Unfortunately, "Rural America: Heartland, USA" is how the movie sees the town, too. The town is generic, the people are generic, the movie is generic, and its politics are generic. Given how broadly unobjectionable it is designed to be, it's a little shocking how transparently it's laboring to be subversive.

Gary (Steve Carell) is a campaign consultant (interestingly, the film's official synopsis calls him a ) who worked for Hillary Clinton and, you largely know who Gary is: Think Michael Scott if he'd made his way into political consulting and used his sales skills over there, and also he didn't have any of the redeeming qualities Michael Scott had.