Jessica Chastain’s character in Miss Sloane feels like the kind of role only ever written for and allowed of men. Elizabeth Sloane is ice cold, unapologetically ruthless and one-dimensionally focused on work, treating food and sex with the impatient disdain of someone too busy to care about basic bodily needs. Think James Bond meets Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross in heels.
A ruthless and powerful lobbyist always after a challenge, Elizabeth is approached by the gun lobby to help make guns seem more appealing to women. Laughing in their faces, Elizabeth quits her position in a leading firm and assembles a small team to take down the gun lobby. Manipulating and exploiting everyone around her, including her co-workers, the goal is to win at all costs. But why?
Underlying Elizabeth’s obsessive need to play the game at the highest stakes seems to be a semblance of morality – but Elizabeth’s not telling. Nor is she revealing why she eschews love and relationships in favour of keeping a male prostitute (Jake Lacy) on retainer. The genius of  Chastain’s electrifying performance is her ability to subtly evoke pathos, even while her character’s actions remain abominable.
Director John Madden’s steely palette captures the coldness of Elizabeth’s world, while Jonathan Perera’s slick screenplay only occasionally veers into the overwritten dialogue that betrays an Aaron Sorkin obsessive (the presence of The Newsroom’s Alison Pill and Sam Waterston adds to the sense of déjà vu). The sharp script is undermined by its convoluted efforts to be clever, including an absurd ending that deflates the terrifying realism of what comes before. But as a glimpse into the power and workings of DC lobbyists, Miss Sloane has a lead character and message that bite.