Bootleg Betty
On this day in movie history – Coastal Elites Premiered
By Mister D
Sept 12, 2026
Coastal Elites is a 2020 American comedy television film (about 88 minutes) written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Jay Roach. It premiered on HBO on September 12, 2020. Originally conceived as a stage piece of monologues for New York’s Public Theater, it was adapted into a remotely shot film due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, The film consists of five separate, largely independent speeches (or “desperate confessions”) delivered directly to the camera by characters living in or connected to New York City or Los Angeles. They grapple with the Trump presidency, political polarization, cultural divides, and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The structure is not in time order across different months in 2020, with each segment framed as a conversation with an unseen listener (e.g., a police officer, therapist, friend, or online audience). The title ironically reclaims the pejorative term “Coastal Elites” used against liberal urbanites.
The five segments and characters: Bette Midler as Miriam Nessler (opening segment, set pre-pandemic in January): A retired New York City public-school teacher and Upper West Side liberal Jewish widow who adores The New York Times (print edition), theater, and NPR tote bags. She is in police custody after snatching a MAGA hat off a man near the Public Theater, explaining her long-simmering rage and cultural identity.
Dan Levy as Mark Sherman: A gay actor in Los Angeles speaking to a new therapist via video call. He discusses an audition to play a gay superhero, personal compromises, identity, and the early effects of lockdown.
Issa Rae as Callie Josephson: A wealthy Black woman who attended prep school with Ivanka Trump. She recounts interactions involving her old classmate and attempts to navigate elite social/political circles.
Sarah Paulson as Clarissa Montgomery: A YouTube meditation/mindfulness coach whose calm facade cracks while dealing with Trump-supporting family members and the stresses of isolation.
Kaitlyn Dever as Sharynn Tarrows (closing segment): A nurse from Wyoming who travels to New York to help during the height of the city’s COVID-19 crisis, offering a more grounded, frontline perspective on the pandemic’s human toll.
The tone mixes sharp satire, comic rants, personal confession, and moments of exhaustion or grief. Reviews were mixed (Rotten Tomatoes around 52%, Metacritic 57), praising the strong cast performances—especially Midler’s energetic turn—while criticizing it as uneven, repetitive, overly polemical “preaching to the choir,” or limited by the monologue/remote format
