“The Ides of March” is set amidst the bracing, high-stakes game of the Democratic presidential primaries, circa the late 2000s. The answer to America’s contemporary problems is Democratic nominee Mike Morris (George Clooney), a suave, confident, intelligent spokesperson for the future, so charmingly adroit in his platitudes about gay marriage and sustainable energy that the idea of verisimilitude becomes a moot task. Mike Morris is Left-of-Center America’s wet dream, and why not? “The West Wing” ended years ago and Hollywood provides a perfect medium for political fantasies, given its predilection to turn up the saturation levels on glossy re-appropriation. In “The Ides of March's” imaginary world, the last word to a question like “What is your religious faith?” can be a denunciation of the relevance of religion in political matters to get a righteous laugh: “My religion is the Constitution.” When every American politician must take the mealy-mouthed approach, averring their religious beliefs—atheism, agnosticism and Islam are not options, no matter how commonly represented they are within America's population—a fantastical diegesis can show us a Democratic candidate like Morris making religion a non-issue and ridiculing the fact that it has been such an issue in our comparatively embarrassing real world.

While the film is far removed from the reality of American politics, there's no denying a certain modicum of pleasure from fictionalizing the contemporary political climate, using iconic imagery and rhetorical vernacular from the 2008 U.S. election. (The infamous Shephard Fairey poster, for instance, makes a cameo, featuring Clooney’s face, and campaign banners are not only in the same red and blue hues Obama favored, but they use the same Gotham font.) Gay marriage is a civil rights matter worth discussing, and since this takes place during the Democratic candidate primaries, the G.O.P. can go fuck themselves—this is Clooney’s dream, remember? The Republicans, even if their approach is the source of obstinacy for many of the film’s touched-upon issues, are irrelevant here. To a certain extent, so too are Mike Morris and this entire re-appropriation thing. Because as the film's poster points out, there is a man behind the man: Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), Morris’s junior campaign manager. Meyers is at the helm of the suspense drama that makes the core of the film. And the challenges he faces as a young, ambitious, naively idealistic politico have nothing to do with posters or gay marriage. Consequently, any and all references to real-life politics form only a specious, glossy backdrop to the riveting chess game Meyers plays throughout the film, though it takes an awfully long time for him to get involved, giving the wrong impression that Clooney’s nod to American politics is intentionally significant.

Only about halfway through the film does Meyers’s mounting corruption pick up any kind of pace: meetings are suddenly all held behind closed doors, in darkened staircases and back alleyways. The drama enthralls, but it fails to engage any larger issue or philosophy—connecting the dots between Morris’s promise for a better America and Obama’s promise of the same, for instance, is a little simplistic. Clooney is re-appropriating here for the sake of it, to let us know this is American politics in the 2000s. Perhaps political philosophy is too much to ask for from this kind of Hollywood thriller. But what’s more problematic, as things start to wind down, is the drama itself, particularly its scarcity of gravity, as the film confuses actors’ gestures to be grander than they really are, despite the talents of the entire cast (in addition to Gosling and Clooney, heavyweight players Philip Seymour Hoffmann and Paul Giamatti square off as seasoned, embittered campaign managers for rival parties). Ultimately this is what separates a Clooney et al writing team from, say, a Mamet or a Hitchcock. But there's good stuff to be pulled out of this teasing set-up nonetheless: the mesmerizing Sorkin-esque raillery between Wood and Gosling, above all. If anything really captures our attention in “The Ides of March,” it's these sexually charged scenes. Such potential makes one hope Clooney’s next project makes love, not war.

==Written by Tina Hassannia==

==From: In Review Online (www.inreviewonline.com)==

Director-star George Clooney's The Ides of March is the perfect film to mirror our time, when the approval rating of the United States Congress is at an all-time low and the divisions between the two major parties and their constituents are wider than ever. Everyone'll have some kind of nit to pick with this rather self-serious film. Right-wingers won't like the fact that the central politician (Clooney's Governor Mike Morris of Pennsylvania, who's running for president) is a liberal Democrat who advocates raising taxes on the rich, supports a woman's right to choose, and may be an atheist ("My religion is the Constitution."). But the Left won't be thrilled by the notion that even among the most seemingly high-minded, the desire for victory and the behind-the-scenes maneuverings and compromises made to achieve it easily trump quaint notions like loyalty and integrity, and secrets are like bullets to be fired at close range, where they can do the most damage. The backdrop is the Ohio Democratic primary, a tight race between Morris and a senator from Arkansas. Both candidates have smart, able folks working for them, with Morris's world-weary campaign manager, Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and idealistic press secretary, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), countered by the opponent's shrewd campaign leader, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti). But smart people make mistakes too, and when Stephen meets semi-publicly with Duffy, who tries to lure the young man over to his side, he opens a can of worms with a stink that leads to some very dark places; nor does his dalliance with a young campaign volunteer (Evan Rachel Wood) turn out to be a great idea, to say the least. With Marisa Tomei (as a reporter) and Jeffrey Wright (as an Ohio senator whose endorsement may decide the race) also along for the ride, this is one of the best-cast movies in recent memory, and they're all excellent--especially the ever-reliable Giamatti and Hoffman, whose old political vets have some wonderfully juicy scenes. The dialogue is literate and sharp; the story's twists and turns are, for the most part, surprising enough to keep you in your seat. Best of all, it's another chance to shake our fists at the hubris and cynicism of the people who're supposed to be representing our best interests. --Sam Graham