REVIEW: The Ides of March (dir. Clooney)

I've been bored rigid by every movie that George Clooney has directed to date, so the sound of a jazz singer, crooning smokily barely five minutes into the beginning of The Ides of March did not bode well. A jazz number! In the first five minutes! Even Clint Eastwood knows not to do that, saving his jazz numbers until well into a movie, when it has earnt the right to a nap. But the Clooney scene, in which budding polito Ryan Gosling and his boss Philip Seymour Hoffman trade expertise on an upcoming presidential primary election, is supposed to whet our appetite for the oncoming battle. And instead we get the sultry sound of smooth, smooth jazz. That's Clooney all over: so anxious to impress us with his sophistication that he puts the audience to sleep. And by "sophistication" I mean, of course, "absolute, unbending disdain for anything resembling exposition." Clooney is the king of the gnomic. His films are the movie equivalent of the pride he takes, as an actor, in never raising his voice — all matte surfaces, elliptically shorn of background, backstory, build-up, and blurb, because to descend to any of these things would be to "condescend" to the audience, to insult their "intelligence," and so on. It would be no such thing, of course. It just shows basic courtesy. It's what you get paid for, as a dramatist. Not this one. For Clooney, love means never having to say what the hell is going on. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was almost unintelligible to anyone previously unfamiliar with the strange case of Chuck Barris. Syriana (which Clooney produced) detonated in the desert rather than explain itself. Good Night and Good Luck was so poker-faced you almost forgot it was there, although I have a vague memory of shots of shadowy men whispering knowledgeably in Cognac-scented rooms. The perfect Clooney film would consist entirely of nothing but muttering in darkened rooms — sotto voce aficionados delivering softly-enunciated expertise. That's a pretty good description of The Ides of March, too, but the movie has more life than that, thanks a couple of twists and the crackle of something going on between Ryan Gosling (him again) and Evan Rachel Wood. Gosling plays an idealistic young press secretary working on the campaign of an Obama-like presidential candidate (Clooney, giving one of those twinkly, I'm-not-really-here performances often given by actor/directors appearing in their own films). Wood plays a bouncy, blonde intern. You'll never guess what happens. I've been a little perturbed by Wood recently, the raw vulnerability she showed in Thirteen having long sealed itself up behind a shellac queen-bitch finish, but there's fun to be had seeing these two two go up against one another; Wood get a lovely, nervous moment, the morning after, making a hash of tying his tie. She's just the latest to play gaga for Gosling — a role for which almost every human being on planet earth seems to be auditioning for these days, with the exception of some distant tribespeople in Papua New Guinea. Whether you buy the rest of the movie will depend largely on whether you believe: a) the American public would elect an atheist to the white house; b) Cincinnati residents will ever forgive Clooney for portraying their city as a greying, washed-out dump and c) audiences want to see inspirational political candidates exposed as lying, immoral scumbags. This may get some takers, certainly more than in 2008 when the film was first penned, but the cynicism felt a little rote to me — and more importantly, it seems to give Clooney no joy. From its bleeugh cinematography to its central message — hope sucks, or blows, depending on your sexual peccadillo — this is one seriously depressed movie. I didn't know whether I should watch it or give it some telephone numbers to call. There's no reason why this should be so: a writer like Aaron Sorkin would have brought some brio to proceedings — a delighted, devilish admiration for the humbug on display. Clooney merely wants us to be down in the dumps. C+