2020 Movies : Political

With Ben Affleck • Anne Hathaway • Willem Dafoe • Toby Jones • Cassian Elwes • Edi Gathegi • Dee Rees • Onata Aprile • Marco Villalobos • Laura Niemi • Rosie Perez • Mel Rodriguez • Carlos Leal • Wayne Marc Godfrey • Robert Jones

Adapted from the Joan Didion novel of the same title, The Last Thing He Wanted is set against the nebulous milieu of the Iran-Contra scandal. Veteran D.C. journalist Elena McMahon (Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway) abandons the 1984 campaign trail out of a misguided sense of duty to her father, Dick McMahon (Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe). Guilted into running a dangerous fool’s errand on his behalf, Elena leverages the moment to pursue her own investigation but instead gets tipped into the confounding center of the very intrigue she’s trying to expose. Answers turn into questions and wrong turns lead to dead ends in this stylish political thriller as Elena becomes increasingly lost on a map of someone else’s making and the possibility of return — to home and to herself — slowly narrows.