The Ides of March

Directed by George Clooney

Written by George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon.

The film is to me an overall look at the recent political history of United States. You don’t need to be very literate to knowledge the American ways. You just need a few films on the subject even some TV shows and you easily get it (maybe not a very intelligent thing to say but ok).

This is a really well driven story, it’s in the dialogues and it is in the narrative. Like the protagonist says, you can lie, you can cheat, you can start a war but you don’t fuck the intern. With this sentence he sort of resumes the American politics over the past decade. This is also a George Clooney dear theme and he uses this recent story, if I’m being right, and he expresses what he believes. When all we hear from these man’s speeches is integrity and trust and that’s exactly where they fail. The film shows us this matter precisely and authentically.

What I also think Clooney wants to say with this story is that at the end of the day men are cheaters, men aren’t faithful. They may even have an answer for that and that’s totally legitimate. Because here’s my opinion, so are women. They could simply say no. There’s not only one person that makes a baby, there’s got to be two involved. I guess the inevitable power figure present in men overshadows that choice in some way, but this is only an excuse. The conclusion is men and women are animals with urges.

The Ides of March is a power film; its politically mysterious, it’s dramatic and we are carried away with the powerful magnetism of Ryan Gosling’s character and again really powerful performance. But he was really well supported by these other mates, the kings actually. Phillipe Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, George Clooney included.

There’s something about actors going behind the camera and making great solid pictures, which somehow makes a lot of sense since they are on a film set much more often than the director, gaining all kinds of different experiences and methods and then there’s also one crucial aspect they know – how the actors work. That’s crucial because at the end, a film is all about the performances. So let’s bring them. Angelina Jolie already started. Scarlett Johansson will also go for it. So I’m really interested in this Hollywood tendency (not that is new, obviously).