Gwyneth Paltrow is Too Damn Beautiful in Netflix’s ‘The Politician’

Netflix’s The Politician is about the messy making of a great man. Ben Platt plays Payton Hobart, a frightfully ambitious teenager who is convinced that he is going to be President of the United States. Shepherding him and imbuing him with self-belief is his loving mother, Georgina Hobart (played by Gwyneth Paltrow). Whenever Georgina is onscreen, she overwhelms everything else. She is an almost unreal idealization of what a mother should be: beautiful, kind, smart, calm, and loyal to her children over her heart. We see all these qualities not just in Paltrow’s performance, but in how she appears on screen.

Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t just look beautiful in The Politician. She’s almost too damn beautiful.

When we first meet Georgina, she is the portrait of patrician cool. Clad in a luxe kelly green caftan-style gown, hair blown out to look like Veronica Lake, make up divinely applied, she is as close to being a goddess as possible. She is kind to Payton, defending him from his older brothers’ bullying, and sorrowfully married to a ridiculously rich man she doesn’t love. She explains that she is spending her time painting a deceased Syrian war refugee, all so it can be auctioned for charity. Georgina is the kind of woman who is almost too perfect to exist, and that’s how Gwyneth Paltrow plays her. She is more than human; she is beyond reality. She is even beyond the rest of The Politician.

Now The Politician is an exquisitely beautiful show. Each frame is full of luxurious costumes, gorgeous people, and a rainbow of vibrant colors popping in and out of sight. However, Georgina is still the most beautiful thing in this obscenely beautiful show. Paltrow is styled, lit, and shot like an angelic presence in The Politician. It heightens the actress’s own take on the character, but it also forces us to remember how goddamn beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow really is. Indeed, she hasn’t looked this good since Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, a movie totally concerned with surface beauty and the desire we all have to be picture perfect.

There is, I think, a thematic purpose to Paltrow’s appearance in The Politician. It goes beyond a movie star’s vanity. What Georgina’s style says about her is the same thing that Paltrow’s serenely composed interpretation of her communicates. Again, this woman is too damn perfect. And with her as the maternal force in Payton’s life, guiding him to potential greatness, she becomes the young man’s muse, cheerleader, and guardian angel. She represents way Payton needs to achieve, and as such, she needs to look this darn good.

Watch The Politician on Netflix