What if you took the movie Election but turned it into a Ryan Murphy show on Netflix? That seems to be the premise of the dark comedy The Politician, which stars Dear Evan Hansen’s Ben Platt as another kind of morally dubious teen, a wealthy Santa Barbara high-school student named Payton Hobart, who “has known since age seven that he’s going to be President of the United States.” “To get elected Student Body President, secure a spot at Harvard, and stay on his singular path to success,” reads an official synopsis, “Payton will have to outsmart his ruthless classmates without sacrificing his own morality and carefully crafted image” (you would think his parents could’ve just bribed him into a school).
Originally, Barbra Streisand was in talks to join the cast, and though she won’t appear in the show, The Politician has retained a very starry lineup, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Lange, Zoey Deutch, Lucy Boynton, Bob Balaban, David Corenswet, Julia Schlaepfer, Laura Dreyfuss, Theo Germaine, Rahne Jones, and Benjamin Barrett. The show was also originally described as possibly including a few musical numbers featuring Platt, though none appear in an early draft of the pilot obtained by Vulture. The script does include some gory teen death, however; how very Heathers. The Politician premieres September 27. Pick Flick — I mean, Hobart!
