W.
2008
Written by Stanley Weiser
Directed by Oliver Stone
Whatever you expected W. to be, it's not what you expected. It doesn't find Oliver Stone in the provocative mode of JFK or Natural Born Killers, as his fans had hoped; and it isn't some goofy, over-the-top SNL skit like many had feared. Instead, it is something that I don't think anybody was ready for: A mostly fair and balanced look at the road that led George W. Bush to the presidency. Maybe Stone still has a few surprises up his sleeve, after all.
The first presidential biopic to be made while its subject was still in the Oval Office, W. follows Bush (Josh Brolin, in a letter-perfect performance) from drunken Yale frat boy to recovering alcoholic governor of Texas to what can be considered--at the least--two controversial White House terms. The thread that connects them all? Bush's destructive relationship with his father George H.W. Bush (James Cromwell), which is in the mold of so many classic father/son struggles: The son cannot escape from the father's shadow and is doomed to forever follow in his footsteps.
In fact, I think it's fair to say that the movie spends a little too much time on its domestic drama. The spats between Bush Jr. and Bush Sr. can be intense, such as when Junior comes home after a night of celebrating his admission to Harvard, only to tell Poppy that he has no intention of going. Brolin and Cromwell spit sparks, even though Cromwell's total lack of effort to look or sound like H.W. is jarring. But what's strange about W. is that despite its two-hour-plus running time, there doesn't seem to be enough going on. We see scattered flashbacks of Bush boozing and crying and having personal epiphanies, but Stanley Weiser's script never makes sense of it all. We understand that Bush evolves from an undisciplined ruffian into a deceivingly skilled politician, but without the kind of background knowledge every American citizen has, I don't know if what Stone and Weiser provide would be enough.
But in other areas, they knock it out of the park. Every scene with George and his loving wife Laura (Elizabeth Banks) is a winner, especially the scene where they meet at a mutual friend's backyard barbecue. She's a liberal schoolteacher and librarian, and he's the big conservative type in the cowboy hat; she volunteered for Gene McCarthy, and when they meet in 1977, he's already gunning to join his family's archly Republican political dynasty. The scene is handled with such a delicate balance between coy humor and budding romance, and Elizabeth Banks is so winning as Laura, that it's something of a small masterpiece. Their love is a strong one, and it is perhaps W.'s biggest success that their pairing never for a second seems like less than destiny. The film doesn't remark on this fact, but it's worth noting that after their marriage, she switched political parties without noticeably switching ideals. That says something.
W. also finds success in scenes set in 2002-03, when Bush and his Cabinet are contemplating the invasion of Iraq, an invasion which we now know was a terrible error, slaughtering thousands in the throes of a pointless war which is still being waged. Watching Bush and his crew attempting to rationalize and justify this strategic move is fascinating, never more so than when Vice President Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) is onscreen, masterfully manipulating Bush and using his power for sheer political gain. And yet it is to the filmmakers' credit that Cheney doesn't come off as an evil mastermind, rather a seriously unpleasant man who knows how to get what he wants, which is admittedly closer to the truth.
Dreyfuss' performance is a wonder to behold, eerily capturing Cheney's looks and mannerisms. He's a slick snake fuck of a man, and Dreyfuss gives him a vicious deliberateness which he uses to explain exactly what he wants Bush to do, so convincingly that we don't think of Bush as an idiot when he sits back and takes orders; if we had been in his position, we would've done the same. I think that's the whole point of the movie, and it's one Brolin sells expertly. He could've easily slipped into cheap parody, but he's the very first actor to portray Bush with a sense of empathy and understanding. And parody is a trap which W. occasionally falls for, interspersing its already loose narrative with familiar events and Bush-isms that serve no real purpose. For example, Bush's much-ridiculed pretzel incident is oddly inserted into the film without reason and is never revisited, and the "misunderestimated" line is thrown out like a smug in-joke. These cheap laughs come at the expense of exploring something important like his infamous National Guard stint in the 60's or the 2000 election, both of which are inexplicably left out.
And yet W. is a good movie, an entertaining enough slice of political entertainment. It doesn't have a lot to offer us in this heated election year (and the film went from shooting to release in about five months), but I liked it for what it was, even if I was hoping for something with more of a bite. It's confused, maybe, and a little sketchy, but Brolin is so convincing and so utterly human that Oliver Stone manages to make us come to terms with the fact that the real life Bush is a person too. The one we might want to have a drink with, but not the one we want with the nuclear codes. And we've got to realize that we're the ones who put them in his hands. Twice. Look at W. as a cautionary tale; the Bush Administration may have destroyed us, but we let them. We can't afford to do it again.
- Arlo J. Wiley
October 18, 2008
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