The movie follows Elizabeth Sloane, the most sought after and formidable lobbyist in D.C., as she faces off against the powerful gun lobby in an attempt to pass gun control legislation.
Miss Sloane is a powerfully conceived thriller with something dead at its centre: there is no reason a female protagonist must be good or well-behaved, but she must at least be interesting.
Following a pair of sojourns to the adorable Marigold Hotel, John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) takes a giant step forward with this perfectly timed tale of how to draw and quarter a lobbyist.
The movie shares with other mainstream political dramas an easy notion of Washington as a hopeless cesspool of sellouts, paybacks, and heinous personal betrayals.
We don't need to like her, but Chastain makes us understand and even sympathize with her, ruthless and cunning though she may be. It's remarkable work.
As a dramatic thriller, it does what it needs to do to keep the audience involved and interested, even if some of its most theatrical tricks and twists are more the products of a writer's invention than actual Washington D.C. activities.
Chastain keeps the story rooted in some kind of reality with a bravura performance that diverts the eye from mounting improbabilities and shows us tantalising glimpses of Sloane's well-hidden vulnerabilities.
Elizabeth Sloane is a character so archetypal, so prescriptive, that you imagine she wasn't born in normal human fashion but rather created in a lab from leftover vials of testosterone and male tears.
