The Ides of Zzzzzzzzz…

Oh, dear.

First let me say that I always enjoy the films that George Clooney directs, and I usually always find them interesting (with the exception of “Leatherheads,” which was pretty much an “I know where that was shot” exercise for me). But… Clooney has kind of a pacing issue. I remember being a little surprised when I read the screenplay for “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and found that the CIA recruitment scene does not, in fact, occur an hour in, which is what it felt like when actually slogging through the movie. It’s wonderful that Clooney gives the actors in his films so much space to work, but I feel like his respect for their work makes him reluctant to actually cut any of it.

You’ve probably read a lot about “The Ides of March,” and it’s really worth seeing, so I don’t want you to think that I hated it. It’s based on a play, “Farragut North,” which is remarkable because the film didn’t seem at all stagy to me. That’s hard to do, so, kudos. The story takes place in the final days before a Democratic primary election in Ohio, which (shades of Obama v. Clinton) is going down to the wire. It focuses on Pennsylvania’s Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney) and his campaign staff, mainly Steve (Ryan Gosling), who’s a communication consultant of some kind, and campaign head Paul (my boyfriend, Phillip Seymour Hoffman).

Tthis is a hard movie to discuss without spoiling it for people who haven’t seen it. So, if you haven’t seen it, you’re just going to have to take my word for it that, while the actors are all wonderful, their characters are a liiiiiii-ttle too stock: Cynical Reporter! Hot-to-trot Intern! If you’ve ever worked on a campaign at any level, there are definitely moments that are enjoyable because they’re so true – “I have TOTALLY been there.” Except… I have totally been there. And so have you. And so has anyone else who’s ever seen an episode of “The West Wing.” Original – nah. Subtle – not as much as it thinks it is. If this movie had come out 30 or 40 years ago, it would rock.

Oh, dear, I haven’t talked about the giant plot issues yet.

***HERE BE SPOILERS***

Ok, so for the first 45 minutes or so, I was so flabbergasted that I almost walked out of the theatre and demanded my money back. It was just that frakking laughable. I kept thinking to myself, is this supposed to be a parody of a political thriller? Does it perhaps take place in an alternate universe where making a national service program mandatory for 18-year-olds will actually win widespread voter support? I mean, this is a country where large numbers of people think that buying health insurance is on par with exile to a Soviet gulag, but they’ll be ok with making their kids plant trees on the side of a highway for two years. Nothing at all implausible about THAT.

Also, and I can tell you this from experience, primary voters do not care in the slightest who’s employed to run the campaign, or with whom these people meet to chitchat in a bar. I can buy that a paranoid campaign manager would care about this, but not really anyone else. Seriously, me to that NY Times reporter who’s trying to blackmail me: “Go the f*** ahead. Who gives a sh*t?” If you think I’m being nitpicky, I’ll remind you that this is like 75 percent of the conflict of the entire movie.

But my main issue – once the big Evan Rachel Wood twist comes out, the movie becomes roughly 87,000 times more interesting. (No, I’m not going to completely spoil it for you.) All kinds of character problems (for me anyway) suddenly made sense. Two things, though: petty cash? Why petty cash? Ryan still needed to use some of his own money anyway. Moreover, I absolutely jumped off the logic train when Ryan, playing supposedly “the best media mind in the country,” walks you-know-who into you-know-where. Absolutely no way, no how, never FAIL FAIL FAIL. This simply would never happen, and if it did, someone would notice. The only way this would be remotely redeemable is, later on, when Ryan could really use some concrete documentation for a certain incident, either the petty cash thing or the public appearance thing had even slightly come up again. (And was nothing written on those prescription bottles?)

***END SPOILERS***

My overwhelming takeaway was that “The Ides of March” needed to percolate just a little while longer before being released to the masses. Individual scenes are engrossing, but the parts just don’t add up to a cohesive whole. The “cut to the lounge singer” thing is directly ripped from “Goodnight, and Good Luck,” where it worked far better, and the “lap sound from the next scene before the visual cut from the scene you’re watching” thing just got annoying after the 47^th time.

But… for real, it’s a movie worth seeing. I didn’t hate it, I promise. I just felt that it could’ve been so, so much better.

Also – points for casting Jeffrey Wright and Gregory Itzin, but demerits for criminal wasting of Jennifer Ehle. She makes everything better. (Ehle worked with Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” but her role was cut from the film. High-five to Clooney for casting her here, though I would’ve loved for her to have had more to do.)