It chronicles the rise of American Senator Gary Hart, the front-runner candidate to be the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, and his subsequent fall from grace when media reports suggested he was having an extramarital affair.

It received mixed reviews; while Jackman was praised for his performance, critics said the rest of the cast felt wasted and the film did not "dive deep enough into its central issues to make a compelling argument.

Meanwhile, at The Washington Post, editors and journalists discuss whether the paper should report on Hart's marital problems and rumoured promiscuity.

After the first week of campaigning, Hart joins his friend Billy Broadhurst for a yacht cruise from Miami to Bimini on the Monkey Business, where he meets Donna Rice, a young woman.

On the campaign plane, Hart gets to know Parker, offering paternal advice and giving the young reporter a Tolstoy novel to learn about the Soviets.

Meanwhile, in Miami, Tom Fiedler has received an anonymous call from a young woman alleging that Hart "is having an affair with a friend of mine".

After the story appears in the Herald, Lee and daughter Andrea are besieged by reporters outside their home in Troublesome Gulch, Colorado.

Parker argues that reporting on this aspect of Hart's life is not good journalism, but the editor, Ben Bradlee, overrules him, indicating that they need to change with the times.

[5] The screenplay for the film was written by filmmaker Jason Reitman, Bai, and former Hillary Clinton press secretary Jay Carson.

[20] It ended up making $56,000 in its opening weekend (a six-day total of $76,199), which Deadline called "awful" and "really horrible when you consider that it's a limited launch of an awards contender wannabe.

[3] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 58% based on 230 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10; the website's critical consensus reads: "The Front Runner exhumes the wreckage of a political campaign with well-acted wit, even if it neglects to truly analyze the issues it raises.