Like all Oliver Stone productions, W. will bring the controversial and acclaimed director praises of genius and bundles of hate mail. The film, a fictionalized biopic examining our 43rd president, marks Stone’s third venture into the tumultuous genre. Unlike his previous portrayals of American leaders, JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995), W. is being released while George W. Bush is still in office, a fact guaranteed to rile Bush supporters and Stone critics alike.
The film opens inside the Oval Office during a post-9/11 meeting between President Bush and his cabinet depicting how the executive branch coined the term “axis of evil.” The story then jumps back in time to Bush’s days as a binge-drinking frat brother at Yale.
Stone uses these first two scenes to juxtapose the president’s polarized personas. Once he establishes these contrasting images (President Bush versus pledge Bush), Stone crafts a psychological interpretation of W’s character that strives to answer the questions of how this man became president and why he is the way he is.
Josh Brolin stars as Bush, and it is hard to imagine that Christian Bale, Stone’s first choice for the title role, could have offered a more complete performance. Brolin has mastered his character’s unique gestures, Texan vernacular, and infamous quirks. What’s even more impressive is the actor’s ability to convey W’s transformation from pledge to president. As the plot jumps frantically between different stages in Bush’s life, Brolin puts forth a vivid portrayal of the various mindsets and motivations that propel W through his journey.
The argument that all of W’s actions can be explained by an Oedipal desire to escape his father’s shadow and emerge as his own man has been exhausted by critics, but it appears to be true to a certain extent. Stone and Weiser interpret W’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and overthrow Saddam Hussein, something his father avoided doing in the Gulf War, from this angle. However, it is important to note that many of W’s defining decisions, at least in this film, are driven by a deeply rooted desire to please his father.
James Cromwell plays a convincing George H. W. Bush, presenting Bush Senior as an honorable and virtuous man, constantly disappointed by his son’s behavior as an alcoholic who stumbles aimlessly from one nepotistic job to the next. Once W becomes a born-again Christian, though, and begins his ascension to the presidency, George Senior is proud of his son and quietly supportive. The subtle change in Cromwell’s character refutes the misconception that the film portrays him as a father who is impossible to please and unwilling to see anything but failure in his oldest son.
In many ways, Stone exonerates Bush from many of his administration’s failures and directs the film’s political ire toward senior members of his cabinet. Richard Dreyfuss plays a creepy and strikingly realistic Dick Cheney who pushes for the U.S. to invade Iraq in order to secure oil interests throughout the Middle East. Thandie Newton looks like Condoleezza Rice’s identical twin and plays a soft-spoken yet influential supporter of the Vulcan policies presented by Cheney and Rumsfeld, the film’s undisputed villains.
The beauty of Stone’s work is that he presents a familiar subject through a distinctive, original lens. W. lives up to this reputation and offers a provocative interpretation of one of our nation’s most controversial presidents.
well done very thoughtful and interesting. I like the evenhanded nature of this review