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Even if the film didn’t present a fascinating thematic parallel to Johnson’s career, she’d still be perfectly suited for a movie like “Materialists,” which demands its lead to inhabit Lucy’s droll cynicism.

There’s certainly room for historical cynicism about postwar Germany and the role of Merz’s center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union, in laundering the reputations of many former Nazis or collaborators.

When “Good Night, and Good Luck” arrived on Broadway this spring, it initially provoked a surprising amount of cynicism.

It will change your cynicism, at least for the moment.

President Ronald Reagan famously talked about a “new day in America” as he encouraged the American people to shrug off their old cynicism and to embrace a new optimism.