Oliver Nolan
Staff Writer
The title may for some recall the bard’s Julius Caesar, but don’t despair: Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous was the only Shakespeare based turkey released this weekend. For George Clooney’s fourth stint in the director’s chair, he’s turned his attention to the murky underbelly of US politics, and has assembled a hugely esteemed and for the most part, really-really-ridiculously good-looking cast.
Based on the 2008 play Farragut North, The Ides of March takes place over a few days on the campaign trail of Democrat Governor Mike Morris’s (Clooney) bid for the presidential candidacy. We see events through the wide eyes of Morris’s idealistic junior campaign manager, Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), whose view of the prospective president is one that is challenged significantly by shocking revelations, leading him to question his own morality as he delves deeper into dark side of politics. Originally planned for a 2009 release, Clooney admits to holding back production, not wanting to release the film in the midst of one of the most hopeful periods in US politics. Only two years on, the film was ready to be released. Indeed, the cynicism that runs through The Ides of March seems very much of the times. This also means unfortunately, that the film isn’t quite as shocking as it seems to think it is. As a political thriller too, the film may be criticised for simplifying the political landscape to a certain degree. Nonetheless, the film is less politics-central than it is a complex character study, with Myers providing the film with its emotional core.
True enough, much of the film’s appeal stems from the uniformly outstanding cast. If this doesn’t turn out to be previously Oscar nominated Gosling’s year, then the actor has quite a career ahead of him. He is always convincing as a man whose ambition and ideals are suddenly at odds with one another, and his Myers is more complex than it initially appears. By the film’s denouement, it is he who has kept our attention throughout. Clooney himself is magnetic enough for us to believe Morris is a front-runner, and in the film’s latter half, when this reign is threatened, he soars. It goes without saying that Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman are on form as always, and Evan Rachel Wood makes the best of a role that is rather typical amongst her repertoire. Indeed, while her casting as the naïve yet threatening Molly is spot on, her mere presence leads us to think things will take a turn for the worst sooner rather than later.
The film may not be quite at revelatory as it purports to be, but this is one of the more enjoyable political thrillers of recent years, largely due to how it hones in on the individual outsider’s experience, exemplified in Myers. Grappling with his ideals, his hands growing dirtier as he digs, his hypocritical and unpredictable nature powers the narrative. The Ides of March consolidates Clooney’s status as a fine director, and while it may not be a truly great film, it’s a damned good one.
