Maybe the neatest factor about “Dick” is the real affection it has for Betsy and Arlene. Modern evaluations of the movie have described them as bimbos and airheads and such, however, they’re simply abnormal teenage women—a bit giggly and foolish, to make certain, however not dumb by any means. And the screenplay doesn’t deal with them as such: they’re simply at some extent in adolescence the place the problems of the world round them don’t have as a lot affect as the most recent situation of Tiger Beat, The purpose is to see them regularly change into smarter and extra conscious of their potential locations on this planet, with out shedding the sense of goofy effervescence that made them so interesting within the first place. That is the form of character journey that Elle Woods would famously make in “Legally Blonde” (2001). Betsy and Arlene not solely obtained to do the identical factor a few years earlier, however additionally they obtained to bust out some swell curler disco strikes within the course of.
Maybe in response to “Nixon”’s stacked solid, “Dick” additionally brings in a crop of nice comedic performers and lets them riff on their real-life counterparts. Among the many highlights are Harry Shearer’s maniacal caricature of Liddy and Dave Foley scoring huge laughs as Haldeman. Then there’s Hedaya’s scene-stealing work as Nixon, a efficiency so humorous and impressed that, within the pantheon of nice Nixon performances, I’d put him second solely to Phillip Baker Corridor in Robert Altman’s “Secret Honor.”
But it surely’s Dunst and Williams’ lead performances that make “Dick” rise. By the point Dunst appeared right here, she’d already greater than held her personal towards powerhouse co-stars in movies as diverse as “Interview with the Vampire” (1994), “Little Ladies” (1994) and had proven a aptitude for comedy within the satires “Wag the Canine” (1997) and “Drop Lifeless Beautiful” (1999). Williams, alternatively, had fewer credit, and those that she did have—most notably her work on the hit sequence “Dawson’s Creek”—didn’t usually give her many possibilities to chop unfastened. That mentioned, they make for a genuinely candy, participating staff.
The pair make investments their roles with a form of grounding that enables them to come back throughout as recognizable folks as a substitute of mere bimbos. Take Arlene’s infatuation for Nixon: The vanity of a youngster fangirling over Richard Nixon is deeply foolish, however Williams performs it with an actual sense of conviction; it’s hilarious with out ever tripping over into cruelty. When she holds up the microphone to Nixon’s tape recorder and delivers a rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s “I Truthfully Love You,” it’s each side-splittingly humorous and weirdly touching.
