An Oliver Stone movie about George W. Bush.
For better or worse, that sentence comes with a hefty expectation. A director who has never made his disdain for the Bush administration a secret, one can rightly be suspicious to hear that Stone made a “fair and balanced” movie about Dubya’s tenure as POTUS. What does that mean, exactly? Does it mean presenting both sides of his policies? Make arguments for and against the War in Iraq? Give a sympathetic and justifiable reasoning for why Bush did the things he did? The film does none of these things.
It’s a fair and balanced portrayal of George W. Bush, but not of his Presidency. For the most part, the film wisely avoids character assassination, staying away from cheap jokes that paint him as an idiot. The Bush-isms, with his mispronouncing and made-up words, are there, but that’s just part of his personality—something the President himself has embraced in good humor. It only adds to the character’s likable charm, which Josh Brolin excels on in his portrayal. How do you make the most derided President in US history a sympathetic fellow? You get Josh Brolin to play him. W. doesn’t portray Bush as a stand-up guy, but it does make you believe that he’s a guy you want to have a beer with (as dumb of a voting decision that is). “They say I was born with a silver spoon. They don’t know the burden that come with it,” young George Junior laments at one point. It’s a whiny sentiment, but Brolin sells it.
Detaching the character from his real life counterpart, W. is a tragic story, almost like a Lifetime channel biopic of a son who just wants acceptance from his Poppy. Taking that step back from reality is a key to the movie’s effectiveness, because like it or not, you would carry your own perception of Bush into the movie, when the film seems to want you to treat him as a fictional character that you’re just now getting to know. This isn’t a story about a politician striving to reach the highest office; it’s a story about a son who can’t hold a steady job in the real world and, like countless other rich kids, falls into the family business to prove to his father that he’s not a complete failure.
It might be surprising to most that this is a portrayal of a President that’s almost entirely stripped of politics. The one scene in the Situation Room—where Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) delivers a searing objection to launching a war with Iraq, followed by Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) offering a rebuttal in the style of a Bond villain monologue on how the US can control the world by controlling the oil reserves—is the only scene that even has the slightest hint of the film’s political leaning.
And that scene feels completely out of place in this movie.
That does not mean, however, that it doesn’t have an agenda. Even thought it gets the audience to root for Dubya through all his troubles, one impression that lingers is that Bush’s motivation is dubious at best, more personal than it is for the greater good. He’s the Southern Gentleman who, though nice and meant well in his heart, never quite grew up or learned from his mistakes. Does that sound like a man who should be put in charge of the free world? W. would have struck more of a chord had it been more playful with history and include more symbolic vignettes. One depicts him getting his Staff lost in his ranch, to show his lacking leadership skills. Another is a dream sequence where a baseball is hit and never comes back down, an analogy for Iraq's no end in sight.
Maybe we shouldn’t call it a “fair and balanced” portrayal. Let’s call it ”human and compassionate,” which it extends to all the characters (except Richard Dreyfuss’ Dick Cheney, who is clearly playing the trickster role here, always sneering from the sidelines like he’s waiting for the perfect opportunity to usurp). The film is even more sympathetic to Bush Sr., with James Cromwell playing him as a weary old man, crying when he didn’t get reelected for a second term. Dubya, who looks up to his Poppy, pretty much launches his own Gulf War because he wants to teach Saddam a lesson on behalf of dear old dad. As a President, this is downright heinous, but as a son—I can’t believe I’m saying this—it’s a pretty sweet gesture.
I’d like to believe that, several years from now, during a cool night on a Texas ranch, a former President pops in a DVD and, much to his surprise, he discovers that a leftist Hollywood conspiracy theorist is the person who understood him most.
"W." opens October 17, 2008 and is rated PG13. Drama. Directed by Oliver Stone. Written by Stanley Weiser. Starring Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Jeffrey Wright, Josh Brolin, Thandie Newton, Toby Jones, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Dreyfuss.
