CINEMATIC Review

THE IDES OF MARCH   ***

George Clooney

2011

IDEA:  The junior campaign manager for a presidential candidate threatens to bring down the campaign.

BLURB:  Not revolutionary, but gripping and terse, a classy old-fashioned political thriller headlined by big names performing in tremendous fashion. Best in show is Ryan Gosling, whose character, a junior campaign manager for a Democratic presidential hopeful, becomes ensnared in the dirty, opportunistic mechanizations of the political game. The film is concerned with how this idealistic man deals with the prickly traps of a world bound to the concealment of potentially career-ending secrets and reliant upon necessary acts of Darwinian self-preservation. It asks us how, or if, we can hold onto our values when doing what’s “right” becomes more a matter of survival than of ethics. Told in a rather minor, but brisk and economic key, The Ides of March answers that question with weariness and doubt.