WHERE NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST

By RICHARD CORLISS

THE TAKE-CHARGE LOBBYIST IS scolding White House officials about the President of the United States. "Your boss," she says, "is the Chief Executive of Fantasyland!" In The American President, this speech is mainly a meet-cute device--a way to put lobbyist Sydney Wade (Annette Bening) on a collision course with President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) before they become friends, lovers and the stuff of tabloid scandal. But the line is also a clue to the politics of this witty romantic comedy, written by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men) and directed by Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally...). It's a liberal fantasy--a vision of the President as a good man who can coax the national consensus just slightly leftward--that is as anachronistic as it is seductive.

Think of Bill Clinton on his best day: charming, committed, goof-free. Think of him, in other words, as Hollywood's liberals did during the 1992 campaign. Now the twist: imagine a Clinton presidency if Hillary had died a few years before the election. He's been in office a while and enjoys high approval ratings. His likely opponent for re-election is the leader of the Senate Republicans--a crabby Kansan named Bob (played by Richard Dreyfuss as if he were a geyser about to gush right-wing bile). On the domestic front, the President has two things to care for: a daughter about Chelsea's age and a man-size libido. He's behaved himself but, in his budding desire for Sydney, hopes the nation might not mind if the President goes on a date.

As bustling and impassioned as the best Sturges and Capra movies, this one captures both the purposeful edginess of Administration Pooh-Bahs (Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, David Paymer and Samantha Mathis--nice jobs, all) and the isolation of the President. You understand why the ultimate lonely guy might make a late-night call to Annette Bening, or Ben Wattenberg. Bening emits too many anguished giggles but is ultimately winning. And Douglas, with his instinct for touchy material that pays off, sells his big speech--a ringing defense of the environment and the A.C.L.U.--so persuasively it might even play in Limbaugh Land.

Aaaaaah, maybe not. This American President exists in an alternate universe from the one the real Bill Clinton must inhabit. The movie offers nostalgia for a time that might have been--say, 1938.