With the re-election Barack Obama next year looking increasingly unlikely, George Clooney’s fourth film as a director feels more like a bitter lament for the political hope of 2008 than a standard thriller, a noble intention of which it just falls short. It is based on a play named Farragut North by Beau Williamson that was produced at the same time as Obama’s election drive. Not one for hiding his liberal credentials, you could be forgiven for expecting that Clooney would airbrush the portrait of Democratic candidates as crusading do-gooders. Yet here, while there is focus on many topical issues blighting American society today, it is viewed through disillusioned and almost sad eyes.

Clooney appears in front of camera as well as behind it as Mike Morris, a charismatic Pennsylvanian senator and contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in a fictitious U.S. election. He is neck and neck with his party rival and with the Republicans lacking a strong contender the White House is within striking distance for both men. Fighting in Morris’ corner is his chief aide Paul Zara (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and junior press secretary Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling). Meyers is a young idealist who is truly inspired by Morris’s policies and determined to see him in the Oval office. Zara is the older and more jaded of the two men, the experience to Meyers’ innocence, yet together their plans of attack have Morris on a seemingly unstoppable course.

Meyers’ is then approached by Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), Zara’s opposite in the enemy camp who is determined to have Meyers work for him and promises to reveal the secrets behind Morris’ glowing reputation. What then follows is a descent into moral confusion, corruption and betrayal as Meyers’ attempts to keep his head above water and survive in a world of cut throat political ambition.

From its opening dissection of the inner workings of a televised candidate debate, it is clear the The Ides Of March is concerned with what lies underneath the tarp of 21st century politics. If Senator Morris is the general of an army then Meyers and his colleagues are the soldiers down in the dirt fighting hand to hand for victory. Clooney confidently cuts back and forth between debates and television interviews with scenes of aides and interns working tirelessly away behind the scenes with laptops, cell phones and cups of coffee rarely out of reach. In certain scenes he places television sets within the frame of the more intimate moments of drama creating a seemingly inescapable world where everyone’s careers (i.e. lives) are out on the line. It’s very well made indeed with Clooney keeping most of the showy direction to a minimum with one or two notable yet well done exceptions. The merciless vibrating of a mobile phone with all other sound drowned out is a particularly effective moment.

It would also appear as though Clooney’s experience as an actor has left him with the strong ability to get strong performances from his ensemble. Along with Drive and to a lesser extent Crazy, Stupid, Love, Ryan Gosling deserves firm establishment as an A-Lister star. Blessed with astonishingly handsome looks, Gosling delivers on the idea of a youthful idealist steadily crushed under the pressure of back-stabbing and corruption. Meyers is a man desperate to do right for the cause he believes in yet his selfless and single minded vision ultimately blinds him and he becomes everything he has detested in the older characters at the stories outset. It’s an old idea that Gosling manages to make alive through his sheer charisma and penetrating gaze summed up perfectly in the films elegant and haunting final shot. On the seasoned front, Hoffman and Giamatti get to relish in weighty, meaty dialogue set pieces that tie in with the movies theatrical background and could be dismissed as sheer awards season bait were they not so well done. Hoffman hints at years of pent up paranoia and resentment in a powerful monologue about his need for loyalty where Giamatti rallies against the Democratic lack of ruthlessness on the playing field (‘We need to get down in the mud with the donkeys!’) It’s a scene that speaks for the whole movie, with the Republicans given no time on screen and only alluded to it is left to the one side to fight each other and it is given riveting conviction by two character actors at the top of their game.

Unfortunately it is Clooney’s handling of another key character that is the films major downfall. With masculinity running rife through the major plot lines, Evan Rachel Wood has to work very hard to make her character of a confident yet out of her depth intern a voice to be heard. She does a good job with what she’s given; her early scenes with Gosling have an undeniably sexy and arresting charge to them. Yet she is then underhanded by a plot revelation feels so trite and forced that it threatens to capsize the proceedings. Clooney clearly needs a shattering plot device to mark Meyers’ turning point yet it is so out of place and stands out that he feels terribly fumbled. I can’t possibly spoil it yet it’s impossible to miss and reduces Wood to a bland and unconvincing cipher rather than a rounded out character.
Ultimately The Ides Of March feels as though it aspires to something revelatory and worthy yet it can’t help but fall back onto some very typical thriller tropes that hold it back from something more special. It’s a shame really as Clooney elicits some really cracking performances and attempts to take a far more scathing and world weary view of the American political spectrum. If you’re looking for something more substantial then I strongly recommend you revisit Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, still his best film by far. This is still fine work and worth watching but you can’t escape the feeling of close but no cigar.