Behind every great political scandal, there are players whose stories get shoved to the side by the first, second and even third drafts of history.
“Gaslit,” overpacked but compelling, shoves back — though not quite hard enough. The actors traverse a wide variety of styles, from sardonic satire to raw sincerity. While that stylistic range can feel indecisive in some episodes, it’s an awfully good cast.
With a deft balance of social cunning and justifiable paranoia, Julia Roberts takes the lead as “mouth of the south” Martha Mitchell. Her public statements regarding Richard Nixon’s ineptly corrupt administration helped bring down a presidential second-term hopeful and various minions intent on smearing the opposition party. Across the eight-part Starz series (seven episodes were available for preview), Roberts occasionally has to fight for screen time in what is an ensemble piece, not a star vehicle. Sean Penn plays her husband, Nixon crony and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, encased in a misjudged load of prosthetics. (More on that shortly.)
