London Film Fest 2011 Day 8 - THE IDES OF MARCH

THE IDES OF MARCH is a cheap thriller full of plot holes that wants us to believe that it's an insightful, intelligent political film.  It tries to mask poor writing and construction with an all-star cast, but I'm not buying it.  This is, for all its pretensions and earnest good intentions, a bad film.  Now, I haven't seen the play on which the movie was based - Beau Willimon's Farragut North (a road on Washington DC full of political consultants).  But my friends tell me that this movie makes a departure from the closed world of that play in the final forty minutes - in other words, the movie is not content to stick with the play's obsession with the mechanics of political campaigns - and "raises the stakes" in the jargon of Screenwriting 101.  The result feels amateur and undermines the momentum and spark of the opening half hour.

As the movie opens we feel we are in good hands. The movie has pace and wit and does what a lot of great political films do - it gives us the feeling we're peeking behind the curtain at a world we're fascinated by.  We love how Stephen and Paul (Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman) intricately plot and plan Governor Mike Morris; (George Clooney) Ohio Primary Campaign. We love the Machiavellian scheming of their opposite number, Tom (Paul Giamatti).  We love the whip-smart dialogue from the pushy intern (Evan Rachel Wood) that Stephen's sleeping with.  The dialogue is almost Aaron-Sorkin-esque and the action takes place in seedy hotel rooms and cheap offices and bleak parking lots.  It all seems to be going so right!  We care about whether Morris' will cheapen himself in order to get an endorsement from sleazy Senator Thompson (Jeffrey Wright).  We care about whether he will win.

The problem is that the movie then takes a turn into nonsense.  The event upon which the action turns is that Stephen will take a meeting with Tom. This is anathema during a campaign - the press will jump on it. So why would a guy so smart for for it? OK, I thought, I'll go with it. But then Stephen needs to get just $900 petty cash to propel another key plot point. Does he just draw it from an ATM thus involving no-one else? No! He asks his sidekick to get it out of petty cash leaving no receipt in an open plan office! Not so smart! And if you don't believe Stephen is smart, you don't believe he can rescue the mess he gets himself into, other than through the divine right of the hero in  mainstream movies.

And what about the politics? THE IDES OF MARCH is not telling us anything new by "revealing" that idealistic politicians can make low deals and do bad things. We are a decade after Clinton. We know about sex scandals. It all seems rather old hat. 

So we're left with a film whether the story is simply not credible and falls from grace into cheap thriller. The only things we can cling to are superb supporting performances from Evan Rachel Wood (who manages to make a stock character sympathetic and nuanced) and the always legendary Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Where's the elegance and sophistication that coloured Clooney's earlier directorial effort, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK?

<< Philip Seymour Hoffman (Paul Zara); Evan Rachel Wood (Molly Stearns) and George Clooney (Governor Mike Morris and Director)  at the photocall for THE IDES OF MARCH at the BFI London Film Festival.


THE IDES OF MARCH played Toronto and Venice 2011. It opens in the US on October 7th; in the Netherlands on October 20th; on October 28th in France Portugal, Ireland and the UK; on November 4th in Sweden; on November 11th in Finland; on December 22nd in Germany; on January 5th 2012 in Hungary and on February 14th in Russia.

Random DVD Round-Up 8 - WAR INC.

WAR INC. is a lo-fi but high concept political satire set in a fictional post-Soviet Islamic republic. Focussing on the key differentiator of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the country isn't occupied by the US Army but by a Blackwater style private mercenary organisation run by a Cheney like former US Veep (Dan Aykroyd). He hires John Cusack's assassin to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister in order to provide further money making opportunities. So, Cusack's character goes undercover as a...er...wedding organiser for a local pop star (Hilary Duff, sending herself up brilliantly).

Written by Cusack and the guy behind the Warren Beatty political satire BULLWORTH, WAR INC. has its moments of visual and verbal humour and I love the over-arching concept. But the humour just isn't well enough developed or sustained to create a truly funny or insightful movie. Somehow the movie just doesn't cohere. This confirms my belief that good satire is one of the most difficult genres to pull of in any medium let alone film. One has to work hard to make it subtle and sharp and one has to resist the temptation to go for broad-brush sending up of obvious targets. Moreover, satire is ultimately an alienating form of humour, and it is hard to do well while also engaging us emotionally - as in the final scenes of this movie.

So, WAR INC. is a failure, but a noble failure.

WAR, INC played Tribeca 2008 and was released that year in the US, Israel, Russia, Taiwan, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal. It is available on DVD.

CYRUS - He *loved* his mother

I love CYRUS. It’s a movie that’s honest, funny, dark and moving. I haven’t seen a sweeter more unlikely romance on screen in years – and rarely one in which the characters are at once so spiky and unusual and yet express such honest emotion. John C Reilly plays a basically good guy, also called John, who is still reeling from divorce and lacks the confidence to date again. Pushed to a party by his remarkably tolerant ex-wife (Catherine Keener) he stumbles upon the beautiful Molly (Marisa Tomei). The scene in which they meet could be taught in film-school as a lesson in how to subvert the “meet-cute” with something far more surprising. There’s a drunk, dejected guy pissing against a tree and a woman walks by and says “Nice penis!” I mean, what an awesome reaction! Immediately we know that’s she’s got an off-beat sense of humour. And then John starts talking to her and immediately denigrating himself: “What are you doing in the garden with Shrek?” But as much as he thinks he’s scored, he’s so drunk and, in a sense, so innocent, that when the Human League’s “Don’t you want me?” starts playing he basically brushes her off to go dance in the living room. Of course he makes a complete ass of himself, but the most amazing thing happens. Rather than being weirded out by what a drunk loser he is, the hot chick saves him by dancing and singing too. I think this is pretty much the most genuinely cute meet-cute I’ve seen.

There is, of course, a glitch to this odd-couple romance, otherwise we wouldn’t have a narrative arc. Molly has a son called Cyrus. And Molly and Cyrus have a very un-boundaried relationship. Cyrus is the kind of kid who should have grown up and gone to college and gotten a girlfriend but is so molly-coddled by his mother that he has become self-centred and unstable. He is massively threatened by John, who he sees as a rival for his mother’s attentions and basically tries to sabotage the relationship. This leads to a comedy of manners in which both Cyrus and John pretend to be getting on well to please Molly but are secretly sabotaging each other. Things come to a head and John’s ex-wife’s wedding where all the bitterness is exposed. This leads to a truly amazing third act, where the movie turns from indie rom-com into tragic-drama, as Cyrus and Molly confront how messed up their relationship is.

I love CYRUS on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. John C Reilly has that great mix of being able to act both as a loveable chump but also as a wily reader of the messed up relationship he encounters. Marisa Tomei is one of those charming actresses with whom you’re happy to spend time. But the actor who really impressed me was Jonah Hill, who for the first time managed to beyond his smart-ass, slightly weird screen persona and deliver a heart-breaking redemption scene. Behind the camera, I think you have to give the writer-director Duplass Brothers mad props for managing to portray a situation that could have been gross – oedipal complex plays out – as basically sweet, but never cloying. I also love the fact that no scene or line is wasted. There’s an economy to their screenwriting and editing that could also be held up to film students. A classic example is the way in which they handle what would conventionally be a montage scene – mixing visuals with audio from another scene – and audio that sounds improvised and natural. And maybe that’s the biggest achievement of all. The Duplass Brothers have taken a caricatured movie situation – ludicrously clingy son sabotages mum’s relationship – and have used that as a hook for dialogue that actually sounds real, and so moves us.

Additional tags: Jas Shelton, Michael Andrews, Jay Deuby, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass

CYRUS played Sundance 2010 and was released earlier this year in the US, Canada, France, Finland and the UK. It opens later this month in Belgium and in November in Russia, Germany and the Netherlands.