Before Aaron Sorkin created The West Wing, he penned the script for the Rob Reiner-directed The American President, a presidential romantic comedy starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. The film celebrated its 30th anniversary in November.

U.S. President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), a wildly popular Democrat, is heading toward reelection with strong approval ratings and a carefully calibrated crime bill designed to neutralize political risk. With Republicans opposed and progressive Democrats frustrated by its caution, the bill reflects strategy over idealism. Guiding these calculations is White House Chief of Staff A.J. MacInerney (Martin Sheen), Shepherd’s closest adviser and moral sounding board, who helps frame the legislation as a necessary step to secure another term.

That balance is disrupted when Shepherd meets Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), a formidable environmental lobbyist pushing for aggressive carbon-reduction measures. Their ideological sparring turns into romance, and with MacInerney’s wary blessing, Shepherd strikes a conditional deal to support her bill if she can secure enough votes before the State of the Union. As the relationship grows more public, the political stakes rise accordingly.

Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), Shepherd’s Republican challenger, seizes on the affair to question the president’s ethics, dragging Sydney’s activist past into the spotlight. MacInerney urges restraint as approval ratings slip and congressional support erodes. Faced with losing his crime bill, Shepherd follows MacInerney’s strategic counsel and sacrifices the environmental legislation, a decision that costs Sydney her job and ends their relationship.

On the eve of the State of the Union, Shepherd’s crisis of conscience comes to a head in a late-night exchange with MacInerney, who ultimately challenges him to lead rather than triangulate. The next morning, Shepherd delivers an unscripted rebuke of Rumson, revives the environmental bill with tougher provisions, and withdraws his compromised crime proposal in favor of meaningful gun control. Reunited with Sydney, he heads to Congress prepared to govern on principle instead of polls.

Following their success on A Few Good Men, Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin teamed up again on the presidential romantic comedy The American President. It wasn’t quite as successful as the 1992 courtroom drama and, sadly for Reiner’s directorial career, he would never again be able to top the strong run with which he started his career. As for Sorkin, the film would eventually lead to The West Wing airing for seven seasons on NBC. The film was later honored by AFI as one of the greatest love stories.

Interestingly, there’s a universe where the late Robert Redford would have starred in The American President. His initial premise led to Sorkin penning the script, but after Reiner signed on to direct, Redford dropped out. His loss was Michael Douglas’s gain, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role of President Shepherd. What’s really interesting is how casting for two actors in the film would later change their lives. Because of Michael J. Fox playing a presidential aide, he landed a gig on Spin City. Martin Sheen would go on to join The West Wing as President Jed Bartlett, along with other cast members.

Marc Shaiman’s main theme is very patriotic in tone. It wouldn’t be out of place in films like Air Force One or even Saving Private Ryan. Surprisingly, Shaiman’s theme even showed up in the Saving Private Ryan trailer. Shaiman focuses on the romance in other aspects of the film, but he’s smart to drive home the patriotism in the main theme. That being said, while the main theme is memorable, it’s not the only musical cue throughout the film. Shaiman’s work earned The American President its only Oscar nomination.

As far as on-screen presidents go, The American President’s Andrew Shepherd is very different from James Marshall and Dave Kovic/President William Harrison Mitchell. For one, he’s widowed with a 12-year-old daughter, Lucy (Shawna Waldron). This brings about its own set of pressures, let alone problems, for the leader of the free world. And when he does find someone he’s interested in, it just so happens that she’s a lobbyist. Entering a relationship with her comes with its own set of problems, and a similar plotline involving the deputy chief of staff would later play itself out—where else—on The West Wing.

In The American President, Shepherd also has to rise to the occasion when he’s tasked with a proportional American response to an attack on American assets in Israel. He ultimately orders an attack on Libya’s intelligence headquarters following the earlier strike on a missile defense system. It comes as no surprise that President Bartlett would find himself in a similar situation very early during The West Wing’s run. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but both involve American assets in the Middle East.

One could argue that The American President served as something of a backdoor pilot to The West Wing, given how much material didn’t make it into the film but later appeared in the show’s first season. At times, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins—both tackle gun control, which we’re still talking about 30 years later. I suppose that’s a work hazard when a screenwriter borrows from themselves while penning a TV series. When it comes to politics, though, Sorkin remains one of the masters at writing it for fiction.

Perhaps the most interesting decision by Sorkin was to make both presidents in The American President and The West Wing come from university backgrounds, where they were professors. In Shepherd’s case, he taught history. It’s very rare for presidents to come from an academic setting. I’m not counting President Barack Obama, who taught law at the University of Chicago prior to his 2004 U.S. Senate run, as he was also a state senator. Woodrow Wilson remains the last U.S. president to have served as a university president prior to being elected.

The sad part about watching The American President over 30 years after its release is that Andrew Shepherd feels more presidential than what we have right now. He’s a man of principles and leads by example rather than bullying. Aaron Sorkin may have his own flaws in how he writes female characters (see The Social Network), but he clearly knows what he’s doing when it comes to writing fictional political leaders.

Over 30 years after its release, The American President plays as a sobering portrait of principled leadership that feels increasingly rare.

DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
SCREENWRITER: Aaron Sorkin
CAST: Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, David Paymer, Samantha Mathis, John Mahoney, Anna Deveare Smith, Nina Siemaszko, Wendie Malick, Shawna Waldron, and Michael J. Fox

Columbia Pictures released The American President in theaters on November 17, 1995. Grade: 5/5

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