This is apparently not the season for original scripts. The fortnight’s third adaptation draws on Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North, in turn loosely based around the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean. However, it was Barack Obama who truly influenced the film, as director George Clooney put off its production for years, reluctant to ruin Obama’s run for the White House with this dark and cynical representation of the political world.
In delaying the film’s release, Clooney may have unwittingly made it resonate even more deeply with Obama’s time in office. Charting the respective fall from grace and fall from innocence of the (unbelievably) left-wing presidential hopeful Michael Morris (George Clooney) and his naïve press manager Stephen (Ryan Gosling), The Ides Of March becomes a parable about the impossibility of living up to an ideal.
Paying homage to the original play from its opening shot, Clooney combines a witty and occasionally vicious script with wonderfully dramatic cinematography. Playing with light and shadow and dramatic backdrops of American flags, every pivotal scene has a subtly theatrical feel, heightening the sense of drama without ever detracting from its realism.
But despite the lush look of the film and fantastic performances from a sad-eyed Gosling and a smarmy Clooney (with great support from Seymour Hoffman and Giamatti), the film falters somewhat due to both a gaping plot hole and its miniscule scale. The entire drama centres on concealing one uneventful meeting between opposing Democrat campaign managers from the press, because apparently the New York Times (represented by a nicely ruthless Marisa Tomei) favours headlines like “Political Administrators Share Buffalo Wings”, and this would be irreparably damaging to everyone involved. It’s either absurd or ill-explained, and unfortunately undermines the tension-filled fall-out.
Likewise, sticking so insularly to the interwoven relations of the small cast may be an attempt to show the complex, incestuous nature of political campaigns. Actually, it just feels small, and disappointingly unimportant.
Wonderfully acted and always engaging, The Ides Of March is a smart drama, but its message about the disillusioning effect of politics offers nothing new. A solid film, but Clooney may need to dream bigger. Yes you can, George!