George Clooney denies wanting to be a politician, but he does play one well on screen. He must have especially enjoyed the parts where, as Pennsylvania governor and presidential hopeful Mike Morris, he gets to make inspiring speeches that’d do any Hollywood liberal proud. Morris’s campaign posters look just like the Obama “Hope” ones, only they say “Believe.” But what does he believe? After a reporter asks, he says that he’s not a Christian. Nor is he a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, etc. No, his sacred text is the Constitution. That director Clooney and his cowriters Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon (whose play Farragut North has been adapted here) apparently think a plausible candidate, even one in a Democratic primary, might say this—in a country where half the citizens say they wouldn’t vote for an atheist—might suggest they are a bit out of touch.
Nonetheless, you can probably like this just fine no matter what you think of its fictional candidate. It’s the politics, not the policy, that drives the plot, and the ultimately cynical take on the former may have bipartisan appeal. Political advisors and campaign workers, not candidates, are the main players on this stage. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Morris’s James Carville-like campaign manager, but Ryan Gosling, his number two man, is the pivotal character. Key roles also go to Paul Giamatti, as the campaign chief for Morris’s primary opponent, and Evan Rachel Wood, as the young intern whose blonde locks and flirty banter are enough to lure Gosling’s ambitious consultant into a tryst in a Cincinnati hotel.
As usually happens in political movies, scandal intervenes; the lesson of politics is that one small lapse in judgment can be the downfall of a candidate, or his advisor, or even a 20-year-old intern. I prefer a movie where the cynicism is more balanced with idealism, like Primary Colors, probably my favorite. (Though it’s probably less appealing to conservatives.) There is a superficial resemblance to that in the themes here, but Colors was to me a heartbreaking drama about the disappointment of true believers, not just a good yarn. Certainly the advisors here are not closet Republicans or anything. But they are more jaded, and Clooney’s movie is more straight political thriller than anything. That said, it is a fairly riveting one. Clooney’s storytelling is as economical as in his earlier Good Night and Good Luck (also written with Heslov). Even a Republican could love it.
viewed 10/13/11 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 10/13/11
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