'Shirley' review: Regina King is best thing about Chisholm biopic

WHAT IT'S ABOUT From 1969 to 1983, Shirley Chisholm — the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress — represented New York's 12th district, or Bedford-Stuyvesant. This movie — written and directed by John Ridley — picks up in 1972, when Chisholm (Regina King) became the first Black candidate to run for president and the first woman to run for her party's nomination.

In her bid, she's got help, including advisers Stanley Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell), Arthur Hardwick Jr. (Terrence Howard), and Brooklyn powerbroker Wesley McDonald "Mac '' Holder (Lance Reddick, in his last role before his death last March). Others, like college students Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges) and Barbara Lee (Christina Jackson) help her line up the youth vote.

Then, there are the skeptics, who include her sister, Muriel (King's real-life sibling, Reina King), and husband, Conrad (Michael Cherrie.)

"Shirley" is dedicated "to Ian" — Regina King's only son, Ian Alexander Jr., who died by suicide in 2022.

MY SAY "Shirley" plays like the last episode of a four-part TV series, and a pretty good one at that. In this episode — the movie — King's Chisholm has a breezily unbothered approach to her vaunted ambition, as if running for president were the most natural thing in the world. Why shouldn't she run? When doubters roll their eyes, Can-Do Shirley steamrolls ahead. There's an upbeat vitality to this performance, in defiant contrast to a vestigial image that's lingered across the decades — the rather steely, schoolmarmish candidate with the helmet hair and cat's-eye glasses, staring down a skeptical media.

King, as you might expect, is easily what's best about "Shirley." She humanizes Chisholm, and better still, finds empathy and heart in that long-ago bid that must have seemed like the political equivalent of the moon shot at the time.

Nevertheless, she manages this only to a point because what's missing are the first three phantom episodes of this potential miniseries — the backstory ones that might clarify motive, reason or intent. But why run for president, her husband wants to know in a late scene. Reasonable question, but instead of an answer, he's met with silence. Chisholm never fully comes into focus in "Shirley" because there's a lot of silence when it comes to those "whys." 

Maybe that's the point because Chisholm never comes into focus for voters in this portrait either. She visits archnemesis George Wallace (W. Earl Brown) in the hospital where he's recuperating after an assassination attempt — to pray for him. She refuses to bow before the sacred cows of the Democratic Party circa 1972, like women's rights or busing, because "I am the candidate of the people of America." She says that "I see what's going on in the world [and] the agony of the people wounds me." But which "people" exactly? And what "world?"

"Shirley" does fill in some of backstory, much of it fascinating and much that's been lost to history. For example, by challenging the TV networks to include her in the debates with Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey and George McGovern, she won a historic decision that got her vast media exposure weeks before the '72 California primary. After realizing her bid is a lost cause, she horse-trades with rivals for Black delegates as a way to shape the party platform — only to relinquish them all to McGovern hours later.

Yes, there's a fine miniseries in here; you'll just have to settle for the last few scenes.

BOTTOM LINE Fine performance, incomplete portrait.