Smoke signals

Thank You for Smoking is a satirical comedy about the culture of spin, adapted from Christopher Buckley’s 1994 novel of the same name. Its hero is the wolfish Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), chief lobbyist employed by cigarette company ‘Big Tobacco’. It is Naylor’s job to defend the company he works for (and its right to exist), and smokers (and their right to smoke). He is smart, attractive and exceptionally good at his job — more than a match for the saps pitted against him by his arch-enemy, Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre (William H. Macy), who wants cigarette packets labelled with the word ‘Poison’ and a picture of a skull and crossbones.

Finistirre foolishly assumes that he has the moral right on his side, and that therefore he will ultimately succeed. Naylor operates under a different principle: he knows that if he can prove an opponent wrong, he will become right by default. And so, as he tells his son Joey, if you can’t win the argument you’re having, change it to one you can win, and then prove the other person wrong. You still win.

Invited to defend his company in front of a TV audience, Nick is presented with a boy with cancer and accused by the programme’s host of peddling child-killing poisons. Booed by the audience, Nick just throws up his hands: ‘Why would Big Tobacco want this kid dead,’ he grins, ‘when we could have him alive and smoking?’ Before the first commercial break Naylor has crushed the opposition, shaken hands with the sick boy, and earned a round of applause from the audience.

When not outwitting the Senator’s office, Nick has other battles to undertake. He is struggling to maintain a relationship with Joey, whose mother finds Nick’s career highly questionable.