The President's Mistress

Based on the novel by Patrick Anderson, The President’s Mistress was shot in a week and a half on location in Washington, D.C. As you can deduce from the title, the President’s mistress plays a big part in a story revolving around governmental intrigue and misguided intelligence, which eventually leads to her death.

The novel’s protagonist is an ex-lover who tries to solve the mystery; in the movie it’s the woman’s brother, played by Beau Bridges. He’s a likeable low-level government employee who has a good, but somewhat distant relationship with is sister. When she says she’s seeing someone she refuses to divulge any more information, but she’s left enough clues to uncover the truth behind her death.

The film is an extremely engaging and well-plotted mystery, which unfolded quite nicely – until the end. Unfortunately, the final reveal of what happened is a bit of shoulder shrug, but the rest of the film is so absorbing and thoughtful, that I'll call the finale a minor quibble.

Political intrigue movies usually leave me a little cold, but this one concentrates on characters over political espionage and it works on a more relatable level. Bridges is delightful and draws you in. Karen Grassle is gorgeous as the mistress and instead of making her ultra-cool and aloof, she seems like any other kept woman, both flawed and human. We only see the leader of our country through an amusing “President-cam” and he becomes a lesser element in the story, concentrating instead on Bridges’ attempts to bring justice to his sister.