Sherman Augustus and Ingrid Rodgers- Team Marilyn (photo credit: Charlie Murphy)
The political season is upon us. A presidential election looms. A sex scandal lurks. No, it’s not the campaign of the guy known for secret pornstar pay-offs at the center of this sharp political drama – and – in the interest of equal-time, neither is it the guy who left the stain on the infamous blue dress. Indeed, at the center of this, ever so slightly lurid, poli-drama is a woman, Marilyn Graham, played by Ingrid Rogers (Bosch) with a sultry power that fans of television’s Scandal will recognize. Marilyn is a black female candidate in the thick of a heated run for President as an indiscretion threatens to end both her candidacy and her marriage.
TEAM MARILYN is the directorial debut of noted Showrunner and television writer (Shameless, Turn, Walking Dead) LaToya Morgan, an exceptional scribe whose work can also be found in several episodes of the AMC fantasy/drama, Into the Badlands, where Morgan handled storylines that involved allusions to Shakespeare; elaborate soliloquies, piercing insight into human nature and cutting turns-of-phrase. All those skills are put to work in TEAM MARILYN. With a cast of three and lots of dialogue, it’s got a lot to say about a number of things, though not so much about politics – save the context itself which speaks volumes about that subject too.
Morgan’s timing is impeccable. The zeitgeist of the day is in this movie. Here one is reminded of the events around Congresswoman Katie Hill’s resignation – look her up – that got ugly. Morgan’s cinematic timing is astute as well. Her film opens with a low wide shot in the living room of Marilyn’s suite. It’s a long shot that slowly creeps in on the candidate and her husband (Sherman Augustus, Into the Badlands), whose seething is palpable. They are working their way into a conversation that becomes a confrontation. It simmers, boils and burns. It’s a wicked little movie that unravels as a taut, tension-filled and sexy drama set in the world of politics about a woman who intends to have it all – and the power of the veto – too.
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