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BOOKS & ARTSTELEVISION REVIEW

‘All the Way’ Review: The

Pressures of the Highest Office
The story of LBJ’s presidency reveals a deeply idealistic man and the spirited
wife who loved him

Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson

PHOTO: HBO

By Dorothy Rabinowitz
Updated May 19, 2016 9:40 pm ET
“All the Way” opens with sights all too painfully familiar—a hospital in Dallas; outside and in,
knots of brokenhearted Americans waiting to know whether the president will live or die.
Inside, under protection of a heavily armed guard, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (Bryan
Cranston) and his wife, Lady Bird (Melissa Leo), are informed that President John F. Kennedy
is dead. The next voice is that of Lady Bird. “Lyndon—wake up, honey. We’re about to land in
Washington.” There’s no going back from here.

After the briefest of moments with this new president and his wife, the realization sets in: We
are already profoundly and inescapably in the grip of two extraordinary performances—the kind
that seem so little like performances it’s necessary to remember from time to time that these are
what they are. Bryan Cranston’s astonishing portrayal of Lyndon Johnson—on display in the
2014 Broadway run of “All the Way”—not surprisingly won a Tony, as did the Robert Schenkkan

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play itself. Melissa Leo, new to the role in this HBO production, has not only succeeded in
capturing Lady Bird’s tone with breathtaking precision but imbued her with the spirit and steely
strength that lay beneath that gently charming manner of this First Lady, powers ready to be
deployed when needed.

No one needed her strength more than her husband, a dominating, arm-twisting, canny
politician who, as history has shown, was also deeply idealistic. A leader prepared to use all the
skills, wiles, threats and charm at his command—and of that last he had plenty—in the interest
of securing long-denied civil rights for black Americans, the alleviation of poverty. He had
known poverty, and had not forgotten it.

The film’s core drama (it’s directed by Jay Roach) concerns Johnson’s endeavors for social
justice—first in the battle for his all-encompassing 1964 Civil Rights Act, which put him at bitter
odds with the Southern wing of the Democratic Party leadership. The most embittering effect of
all would be on Johnson’s longtime close relationship with the highly influential Sen. Richard
Russell, of Georgia, appalled by this powerful bill that would yield nothing to segregationists—
Johnson would accept no weakening amendments of any kind. In Frank Langella’s richly
nuanced portrait, the requirements of civility, lingering regard for an old friendship, and cold,
unforgiving rage all coexist in Russell’s feelings toward Johnson. Still there is no doubt that it is
the unforgiving rage that will endure. This is clear when the president and allies, led by
Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey (Bradley Whitford) and the Republican Minority Leader,
Sen. Everett Dirksen (Ray Wise), finally succeed in ending the more than 80-day filibuster
against the bill—which Congress then passes.

A year later, urged on by Martin Luther King Jr. (Anthony Mackie), Johnson undertook his
hard-won struggle to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The film provides a moving, historically accurate representation of the civil-rights struggles of
the ’60s, in which white Americans took part in significant numbers—volunteers who faced
down violence, endured brutal beatings and in several cases gave their lives to the cause of
equality. It is, in addition, a powerful corrective to Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” which, remarkably
enough, depicts Johnson as hostile to the civil-rights movement and an antagonist doing his all
to stall Dr. King’s efforts.

“All the Way” is named after the slogan on the campaign button—people in those days wore
such things—for the 1964 presidential race, “All the Way With LBJ.” It was a foreshadowing, of
sorts, of the election results, which saw Barry Goldwater carry just six states, and Johnson win a
remarkable 61% of the popular vote.
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Toward the end of that campaign a frazzled LBJ, worried over the possibility of defeat, begins
showing the strain—he’s awash in self-pity; suspicious, rude even, to the endlessly
understanding Lady Bird. It’s the worst possible time for him to receive news that his longtime,
devoted aide, Walter Jenkins, has been arrested in a men’s bathroom on a morals charge. It’s a
moment for the display of that aforementioned steel in Lady Bird. Her husband is outraged, and
unforgiving, over the potential for scandal. What will Goldwater do with this story?
Nevertheless, argues Lady Bird, they must reach out to their friend, Walter, who needs them
now. Lyndon scoffs—but Lady Bird, undaunted, won’t abide this abandonment and retorts that
a public message of support must be made.

The film takes certain liberties in the interest of the drama, but this isn’t one of them. Lady Bird
Johnson herself did, in fact, make such an announcement. It was a good bet the show’s creators
would include the Walter Jenkins episode. It would have been impossible to resist the
opportunity for a scene like the one in which an innocent Lyndon Johnson asks J. Edgar Hoover
(a wicked Stephen Root) to explain how you can possibly know if somebody is a homosexual—
impossible to resist the effect as Hoover searches for the description of symptoms.

Virtually everything about this exhilarating work—its enterprise, its unfailing humor, its drama,
its evocation of a period when politicians from bitterly opposing sides crossed the aisle in the
interest of decency and justice—would be cause for celebration at any time, along with a certain
envy. Never more so than in this, our own political moment.

Write to Dorothy Rabinowitz at Dorothy.Rabinowitz@wsj.com

Appeared in the May 20, 2016, print edition as 'The Pressures of the Highest Office'.

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