The Ides of March treads on beaten path

Politics is a dirty world. Just ask George Clooney, who co-wrote, directed, and starred in the new political drama The Ides of March. With a title referencing the betrayal of Julius Caesar and one of the most impressive casts you’ll see this fall, The Ides of March is a time bomb waiting to erupt into a meaningful, edge-of-your-seat political thriller. The problem is, before this film has time to give its plot a life of its own, the credits have already started rolling. In the end, the film only makes a point that could have been illustrated just as well by watching an hour of CNN—politicians are bad, bad people.
The film follows Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) as he enters into the highly-contested Democrat primary in Ohio. Morris’s campaign is managed by Paul Zara, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in his usual scruffed-up manner, but the real brain behind the campaign is Stephen Meyers, a young, bright-eyed smoothtalker played by the ubiquitous Ryan Gosling (seriously, the only actor in more movies than Gosling nowadays is Hoffman).
Meyers’s faith in the governor’s ability to change the country is a play on the widespread Obama fandom during the 2008 election season, but as Meyers is soon to find out, politics in its rawest state is far from the idealistic pedestal upon which he holds Morris. And as this country, with our Clintons, Edwardses, and Weiners knows—never put a politician on a pedestal.
As Meyers gets close to college-aged intern Molly Steams (Evan Rachel Wood), he learns a few unpleasant details about Morris’s personal life. But just before he gets the full scoop on his idol, he gets into a quarrel of his own. Morris’s competitor’s campaign manager (Paul Giamatti), a self-described “jaded” product of the political system, wants Meyers on his team, a fact that the press soon digs up. Soon, the backstabbing begins, and as everyone waits for the “betrayal” upon which the movie is titled, the dark human nature that politics thrives on surfaces in just about every character involved. If you’ve ever thought about becoming a politician, this movie’s plausible circumstance may have you second-guessing your career path.
While The Ides of March is a timely movie, its cynical plot and contemptuous characters drill the audience with politically relevant propaganda. But today’s voters and moviegoers already know that candidates are just sleazy hedonists hiding behind charismatic speeches and hollow promises. The problem is that there are no memorable characters here.
Gosling is miscast as a witty, self-important campaign coach, and while he may currently be a hot commodity in Hollywood, his ripped body and his stuffy-nosed Jersey accent would never cut it in a more believable political show like The West Wing. Clooney makes for a good politician, but his small amount of screen time does not give the audience a chance to contemplate if his game-playing politico has any real value under his handsome demeanor. Hoffman and Giamatti are film veterans, but their talents here are wasted and forced.
While the film is unmemorable, there are not too many flaws, with the exception of the unsatisfying plot arc. The cinematography is decidedly cold to match the climate of the situation, and the film’s progression is logical and engrossing. Whether the film aims at fanning down the excitement towards god-like political figures or if it wants to solely serve as a captivating revenge story is unclear, but the former is much more plausible. And if fanning down is its aim, it succeeds. Still, if Clooney had put more focus on his character Morris, at least the viewer could leave the theater with a realization as to why politicians are in fact so hypocritical. But all we are given is the mere fact that Morris is a paradox of himself, a job that should be left for Gawker, not cinema. Despite the title, there are no Shakespearean character arcs here, just hollow, modern, political cynicism.