The Butler

Robin Williams as Dwight Eisenhower, left, and Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines in a scene from “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”

“You hear nothing. You see nothing. You only serve.” Such are the instructions Cecil Gaines receives as he embarks on his daunting new job at the Eisenhower White House in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”

But of course Gaines, played by Forest Whitaker in a moving, grounded performance that anchors the film and blunts its riskier excesses, hears and sees everything.

And that means that over more than three decades on the job, he has a Forrest Gump-like view not only of the White House under seven presidents, but of the long arc of the civil rights struggle in 20th-century America. More here.

I’m really looking forward to seeing this movie. Do you have a favorite movie you’ve seen this summer?