Chapter twenty-two: The Manchurian Candidate

I actually had to watch this one twice over to comprehend it. The second time, I watched it with my dad who helped explain to me what was happening. With his help, here's what I gather from the movie:

Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl) is the mother of Raymond Shaw, and the senator of Virginia who took over her husband's seat after he passed. Raymond Shaw is an Army hero after saving his men in Kuwait during the first Iraq War. He came back home to pursue political aspirations of his own, or so that's what the audience is led to believe. But in fact, the plot spans much deeper than that.

Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) is giving a speech to a troop of boy scouts about his time in the army at the start of the movie. At the end of his speech, one of the men from his troop comes up to him asking if Ben has had any dreams lately because he keeps having this recurring dream where the troop is brainwashed. At first, Ben brushes him off thinking he's gotten a bit crazy, but then, Ben has the dream for himself and decides to investigate its meaning. His hunt for information gets more in-depth as the movie progresses.

Meanwhile, Eleanor is working very diligently to have her son made the next vice president. Her work pays off. The two stories interlock when Ben comes to Raymond's campaign office to ask him if he has had dreams about being brainwashed in Kuwait. He denies such a thing ever happening and resumes his campaign work. Ben attacks him and bites an implant out of the left side of his upper back and takes it to a lab to have it examined. What Ben finds is that the implant contains technology that is not supposed to exist. This leads Ben to have more sleepless nights and days spent researching at the library.

One day, he finally decides to be given electric shock therapy, and to head to Senator Jon Jordan's office to discuss his findings. Ben is carrying enough evidence that Senator Jordan is inclined to believe him, so he takes the matter to Eleanor and Raymond. When he leaves the office, Eleanor concludes the whole idea as "A proposterous, idiotic story," but Raymond confesses to her that he has had the dream himself.

That's when she activates Raymond with the words,

"Sergeant Shaw. Sergeant Raymond Shaw. Raymond Prentiss Shaw. Listen. "

She orders him to kill Senator Jordan. As it turns out, Eleanor was the mastermind behind the brainwashing scheme of her son and his army mates for a company called Manchurian Global, which has politically endorsed Eleanor for years. The brainwashing experiment was meant to see if scientists could control soldiers to do anything they were commanded to do. Eleanor knew about the experiment and volunteered her son as a way to bring him back to her and give him the presidency. A sort of power that she nor her husband ever had.

With her plan going smoothly so far, on the night of the presidential election Eleanor has ordered Raymond to stand strictly on his star. Then, Ben, whom Eleanor has already activated, will shoot the incoming president through an air vent with a gun she had planted there by secret service men. Finally, Raymond will be the incumbent, and Ben will shoot himself so there are no loose ends. The plan falls apart during execution time. On stage, while waving to the people of America, Raymond has enough sense of reality left in him to know that he has to be free of his mother's manipulation. So, when the new president misses his first position and does not stand on the star, Raymond stands on the star in place of him, and persuades his mother to come over next to him. They die together as the bullet strikes the both of them in the center of the chest.

Ben does not end up shooting himself either, because his girlfriend, who knows that he has been ordered to shoot the gun, spares him death by shooting him in the shoulder. To end the film, the truth is revealed to the public. Newscasters, Ben, and his girlfriend Rosie, all visit the excluded island where the brainwashing experiment took place years ago. Ben is given closure at shore.

Raymond Shaw was an introverted character, and I think that could stem from a mental illness his father may have had which is how he died. Eleanor may have seen similar behaviors in her son that she did in her husband, and she felt the need to control her son's life. That way, Raymond wouldn't end up the same as his father. Ultimately, what this movie boils down to when you think about it, is one mother's need for control. The relenting urge to take charge of everything. Eleanor's compulsive way of being. It was quite a thrilling movie I've got to say.

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.