The Ides of March

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 19th February 2012

Fresh from goofing about in the tear-jerking The Defendants, George Clooney is back, this time directing, co-writing and starring in a political thriller that has you wound as tightly as its characters right until the end.

Clooney plays Democratic Governor Mike Morris, presidential hopeful in the primary stages of his race to the White House.  It’s a two-horse race, and interestingly we don’t see the other horse except in sound-bites on television – because this is Morris’s contest.  We see his campaign office, peopled by bright-eyed young interns, and watch two cynically experienced campaign managers (the typically excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti) play everyone like the strategists they are.

Wisely, however, Clooney doesn’t make it all about his character.  For the centre-piece in this particular battle of chess is the young, smart and idealistic Stephen (Ryan Gosling), Morris’s brilliant communications manager.  Ethically clear-cut – he will only “do anything and say anything” for that which he believes in – Stephen is suddenly embroiled in a series of events that see him questioning his loyalty and priorities.

Clooney loves a political movie, having scored high with Good Night, and Good Luck his black and white, Oscar-nominated 1950s retelling of the McCarthy era.  This story leaps forward sixty years, into a contemporary American tale which has some resonances with politicians we’ve seen come and go in recent years.  But the story is almost arbitrarily “political” – Stephen’s choices, his treatment at the hands of merciless friends and colleagues, and his ensuing predicament could all have happened in any boardroom, TV studio or trading floor.

As with Clooney’s other thoughtful works, The Ides of March isn’t full of rousing action set-pieces, but burns slowly at first, establishing its characters’ motivations and then, one by one, tipping them upside down.  With uniformly superb performances (Evan Rachel Wood’s feisty young intern is a pleasant surprise), perhaps the greatest bittersweet pleasure is in watching Gosling’s Stephen lose his idealistic sheen as the conflict intensifies.  His subsequent trajectory from bishop, to pawn, to rook is gripping.

Coming in at a modest one hour forty, the sudden, seemingly premature ending leaves you wishing (for once) that we could follow Gosling’s journey even further into the depths of what must surely be Stephen’s own personal hell.  Meanwhile, Clooney asserts himself a serious contender for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar next week.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again

Synecdoche, New York

(Small spoiler alert)

The truest line in the film goes something like “The world is not full of six billion extras – but six billion people who are the leading characters in their own lives”.

I’m paraphrasing, of course, and the very fact that I can’t be bothered to look up the script online and quote it verbatim shows an atypical lack of pedantry on this protagonist’s part – which in itself speaks volumes about how small an impact the overall film had on me.

The above paraphrase, however, does encapsulate what is clever about the film.  While at first glance it might just appear to be self-indulgent and pointless, the film is in fact an appropriately self-referential almost-parody of the theatrical world and its creative angst, which is (or can be considered) often self-indulgent and pointless.   Who doesn’t feel as though they are the lead role in the dramatisation of their own life?  Who hasn’t decided who would play them in a movie of their life? (For me, Cameron Diaz.  The “rules” of the game allow for “upselling” when casting.)

So to that end, the notion of casting actors to play oneself is nicely handled.  That is, until it gets rather convoluted and altogether too Lynchian, for my tastes at least.  While Kaufman doesn’t go as far as to make it nonsensical (in the way that Lynch often does with no qualms whatsoever), neither does he make it easy for us.  Frankly I found the “Ellen” character a stretch too far, and one of the less compelling components of the plot.  By comparison, Emily Watson’s rendition of Samantha Morton’s Hazel was a delight in every scene – even when playing her normal, English self.  So Kaufman is certainly clever, and consistently so.

Perhaps the film’s flaw (apart from the ultimately despondent tone and resulting lack of enjoyment in watching it) is that Kaufman writes brilliant, imaginative stories – but he shouldn’t direct.  His previous work was ably handled by Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, two visionary film-makers who brought extremely creative tales to life in beautiful, thought-provoking films.  Synecdoche lacks any visual flair – it’s as if Philip Seymour Hoffman’s dismal life is manifested in the world he inhabits; the world we must watch for two hours.  By the time death finally claims him in the closing scene,
the audience’s relief is palpable.