Home \ Signature Roles \ The Candidate (1972) — Robert Redford
ROBERT REDFORD · 1972 · SIGNATURE ROLES
Bill McKay is a young, idealistic lawyer who agrees to run for the Senate because he is told he cannot win — and therefore can say whatever he believes.
Bill McKay is a young, idealistic lawyer who agrees to run for the Senate because he is told he cannot win — and therefore can say whatever he believes. Robert Redford plays him as a man discovering, in real time, what campaigns do to belief: the slogans replace the speeches, the polls replace the principles, and the crowds grow larger as the message grows smaller.
The film’s famous final line — McKay, having won, turning to his manager and asking what they do now — is one of the great endings in American political film, and Redford plays it with a panic that is also a kind of clarity. He won the race. He lost the reason he ran. The Candidate remains the most honest film ever made about American elections, because it understands that the corruption is not always bribery. Sometimes it is applause.
