March 13, 2009: W.
Here we come back around to Oliver Stone again. I’m still stuck at 1999 in my review of all of Stone’s films, and I’ve been stuck there for 2 years now. What can I say, I’ve been busy. W. is Stone’s look at the life and career of U.S. President George W. Bush.
The ultra-liberal Stone is not a stranger to Republican president biopics. Nixon (1995) starred Anthony Hopkins in a fascinating study of the disgraced ex-president. One might have expected W. to take the form of a fascinating study of a disgraced sitting president, but Stone throws us for a loop by painting a picture which helps us to understand possibly how he came to think how he thinks, and be where he is. It’s noteworthy that Stone did not write this film, which is uncommon for him.
We are presented with Bush’s life in the form of intercut timelines, switching from past to present to link experiences and lessons from earlier in life with situations he has encountered in his political life. We get some good insight into how the overbearing pressure from his father, earlier president George H. W. Bush, may have led to rebellious earlier behaviour which continued into the modern era on a far larger scale and with a far greater impact. Can Bush Junior really be blamed with all of this? It’s a difficult question. Of course, it’s competely unknown how much of this material is true and how much is conjecture, but a biopic always needs to walk that line, authorized or not.
The movie was nice and short, which doesn’t always happen with such films, and this is a great strength. Josh Brolin’s performance as “W” is another in a line of recent roles which have brought him to prominence, including his lead role in No Country for Old Men, and an Oscar-nominated supporting performance last year in Milk. There is some direct imitation but he puts his own spin on it, not unlike the gruff performance by Hopkins in Nixon – not directly imitating but capturing the essentials of the personality. Richard Dreyfuss makes a great Dick Cheney, although Thandie Newton is little more than a caricature as Condoleezza Rice. With a box office gross almost exactly matching its $25M budget, the film will probably just pay for itself on home video, but didn’t exactly inspire the moviegoing public.
W. is not saddled with the usual visual tics and thematic habits we usually see from Oliver Stone, making it much more accessible to the general audience. It doesn’t quite go so far as to make the widely hated George W. Bush sympathetic, but takes the approach of ensuring we understand that everyone has a human side. I applaud the intent and the result. It’s more light entertainment than a heavy exercise in contemplation, but recommended.
About-face from expectations. Works well.
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