Movie Review: Womb

Friday, March 30, 2012

Movie Review: Womb

Womb **

Directed by: Benedek Fliegauf.

Written By: Benedek Fliegauf.

Starring: Eva Green (Rebecca), Matt Smith (Thomas), Lesley Manville (Judith), Peter Wight (Ralph), István Lénárt (Henry), Hannah Murray (Monica), Ruby O. Fee (Rebecca - 9 years), Tristan Christopher (Thomas - 10),  Jesse Hoffmann (Thomas - 5 years).

Note: I saw Womb nearly two years ago at TIFF – and this review was written a few days after seeing it. I see no indication that any changes in the movie have been made since then, but figured I should mention it anyway just in case the movie was re-edited from the very disappointing version I saw two years ago.

Womb is one of those movies whose concept is so good that you simply cannot believe that the end result doesn’t work. The film takes place in a small, beachfront town – although mainly in winter, where the place is even more desolate – and opens with a friendship between 9 year old Rebecca and 10 year old Tommy – a friendship that grew incredibly close until Rebecca and her family moved away. Now, more than a decade later, Rebecca returns, and finds Tommy still there – and the two are drawn back together almost immediately. The only sense we get that this is a sci-fi film, set in the near future, is Tommy mentioning something called “cyber-prostitution”, which involves clones. It is on their way to a protest against this, early in their renewed relationship, where Tommy is hit and killed by a car. And this is where the story really begins.

Rebecca (now played by Eva Green) has some of Tommy’s DNA, and decides that she wants to give birth to his clone, and raise him as her own son. But it’s clearly fairly early on that she has more than motherly feelings toward this new Tommy. Green does an excellent, and unsettlingly job, of staring at this child with a mixture of motherly and sexual feelings. On Tommy’s part, he doesn’t know the secret of his birth (which she hides for many reasons, including the fact that clones are viewed as second class citizens by everyone) – but he looks at Rebecca with that same mixture – something oddly sexual for child his age (and it gets truly creepy in one scene on the beach while the two are playing and Tommy essentially gets on top of his mother, and for lack of a better term dry humps her).

The movie raises disturbing questions about sexual ethics. Technically, although Green gave birth to this new Tommy, they are not actually related. But is she raising this child simply because she thinks the world will be a better place with this version of Tommy, or because she is trying to get her soul mate back. They movie ventures into truly disturbing territory in its final scenes – where new Tommy is now in his early 20s, and while Green must surely be in her mid-40s by then, she doesn’t look like she has aged that much. It is here where the mixed up feeling truly come out.

I realize now that I have made this movie sound a whole lot more interesting than it actually is (which is why I choose to see it at TIFF in the first place). The film is painfully slow, as director Benedek Fliegauf favors long unbroken shots of his characters in and around their abandoned beach house, essentially looking at each other. Yes, this looks carry a disturbing quality to them, but Fliegauf doesn’t seem to have much more on his mind for most of the running time then these looks, which he repeats far too often for them to be effective. He really seems to be treading water at times, waiting to get to his conclusion when he can really let loose. There are many places Fliegauf could have taken this film – and although he choose an interesting one in the sexual angle – there are other questions that are left unanswered – disturbing sequences like when Tommy 2.0 buries his surprising lifelike toy, even as it moves and makes sounds, suggests that Fliegauf may be making a case of nature vs. nurture – and that this new Tommy will be an entirely different person because of the way Rebecca raises him, compared to his original parents – a darker, more violent person perhaps. But there is no follow through on this, no follow through on Tommy’s original parents who are initially reluctant to agree then go away for 2 decades before showing up, and saying nothing.

There are striking images in the film, it raises such interesting questions and Green does a remarkable job of conveying her confused feelings toward her son/lover that I really wanted to like Womb. But the end result is a long, slow journey that takes for too long getting to where it’s going.

Movie Review: The Snowtown Murders

Movie Review: The Snowtown Murders

The Snowtown Murders *** ½ Directed by: Justin Kurzel.
Written by: Shaun Grant & Justin Kurzel based on the books by Debi Marshall and Andrew McGarry.
Starring: Lucas Pittaway (Jamie Vlassakis), Daniel Henshall (John Bunting), Louise Harris (Elizabeth Harvey), Aaron Viergever (Robert), David Walker (Mark Haydon), Brendan Rock (Marcus), Richard Green (Barry), Anthony Groves (Troy), Bob Adriaens (Gavin), Frank Cwiertniak (Jeffrey), Matthew Howard (Nicholas), Marcus  Howard (Alex), Beau Gosling (David).

The Snowtown Murders is an almost unremittingly bleak movie about almost unspeakable evil. It is a movie about the most infamous serial killer in Australia history – John Bunting – who manipulated people into helping him commit multiple murders. We often hear about serial killers manipulating their victims – how else could they rack up so many victims without anyone noticing – but the crimes themselves are really rather crude. It is the way he worms his way into the lives and heads of his co-conspirators that is really chilling. The Snowtown Murders is not a procedural examining the crimes in detail – some of the murders are only mentioned, some implied and only one is really shown in any real detail. Instead, it focuses on a damaged kid and how Bunting got him to help kill.

The movie opens on the family of single mother Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), who asks a neighbor to look after three of her four sons for a few hours. When she discovers that the neighbor forced her kids to strip so that he could take pictures of them, she is incensed – and although the police are called, he’s out on bail fairly quickly – and resumes his life, sitting on his stoop and staring across the street at her house.

For the oldest of the three exploited sons – Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) the pictures are not a huge deal. After all, his older brother Troy has been molesting and raping him for years. Yet, the revelation that there is a “pedo” in their midst gets the locals riled up. And this is when Bunting shows up along with his friend Robert Wagner (Aaron Viergever). At first, it seems all he wants to do is torment the pervert across the street – revving his motorcycle on his porch late at night, and enlisting Jamie in helping to throw a couple chopped up kangaroo carcasses onto his porch. Then, John moves in – presumably because he is dating Elizabeth – and starts holding court in the kitchen in front of all the neighbors – going on about degenerates and pedophiles and “fags” all around them. The way he phrases everything makes it nearly impossible for you to disagree with him – and then he bullies, in a nice way, people into saying just what they would like to do to all these degenerates. For Jamie, with no father in the picture, John at first seems to be the only adult male he can trust – and who cares for him. So when he shows Jamie a dead body, although he is terrified, he goes along with what John wants him to do. And John continues to increase his demands on Jamie as the murders progress.

Co-written and directed newcomer Justin Kurzel, The Snowtown Murders is a movie without any hope, without any joy. This is a movie about a damaged kid, who was already heading down a bad path before John Bunting entered his life. He was ripe for the picking. He had already learned to go along with what older, more powerful men want – from his older brother, who he relents to rather easily when he wants to rape him, to the pervert neighbor across the who asks him to strip. At first, it seems like John actually cares for him – unlike those other two. He is nice to Jamie, listens to him, makes him feels like he belongs. And from there, it is surprisingly easy to get him to kill for him.

There is only one murder graphically depicted in The Snowtown Murders, but it is unforgettable as it shows how Jamie crosses the line between being an accomplice to a murderer. When he does it though, it almost seems like an act of mercy more than anything else – something he does simply to stop the torture that John and Robert are inflicting on their victim – even though Jamie is the one who truly has reason to hate their victim.

As I said earlier, those looking for an in-depth account of Bunting and his accomplice’s crimes may end up disappointed. The crimes themselves are not what the movie is really about – it is really about what the judge in the case called the degenerate sub-culture that Bunting fostered. In a movie like this, performances are key – and newcomer Lucas Pittaway does a fine job as Jamie, as he moves from damaged, quiet kid, to damaged, quiet murderer. But it is Daniel Henshall as Bunting who is truly chilling. In many recent fictional serial killer movies, the killers are portrayed as charming and funny – creepy, yet likable – think Hannibal Lector. But Henshall's performance as Bunting as far from that, although he shows up with a smile. His performance is one of the most chilling, realistic portraits of a psychopath I have ever seen in a film. Very few movies about serial killers deserve comparison to John McNaughtons disturbing, indie masterwork Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer with its great performance by Michael Rooker. Kurzels film, and Henshalls performance, earn that comparison.

Movie Review: Detachment

Movie Review: Detachment

Detachment ***

Directed by: Tony Kaye.

Written by: Carl Lund.

Starring: Adrien Brody (Henry Barthes), Sami Gayle (Erica), Christina Hendricks (Ms. Madison), Betty Kaye (Meredith), Lucy Liu (Dr. Parker), James Caan (Mr. Seaboldt), Marcia Gay Harden (Principal Carol Dearden), Blythe Danner (Ms. Perkins), Louis Zorich (Grampa), Bryan Cranston (Richard Dearden), William Petersen (Sarge), Tim Blake Nelson (Mr. Wiatt), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Mr. Mathias).

Being a teacher in the best of circumstances is hard. Being a teacher in a school where most of the students don’t care, the parents care even less, and the State government is looking to close down your school unless you can raise your test scores is even harder. And after a while of teaching in schools like this, you may well end up like Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody), who at one point cared and thought he could make a difference. We still see flashes of that man, but for the most part, Henry walks through his day like a ghost.

Henry is a substitute teacher called in to take over for a teacher who just cannot take coming to work one day longer. He lives in a cramped little apartment, in the bad part of town, and spends most of his money on his grandfather’s assisted living facility – but that sucks too, as the staff doesn’t really assist grandpa too much. When Henry walks into the classroom, it takes him a while to get everyone to settle down – he has to throw one student out almost immediately, and then is threatened by another one. For those thinking that perhaps Henry will turn this ragtag group of misfits around, you’re in for a surprise, because nothing of the sort happens. True, the students gradually do come to respect Henry, but he doesn’t really inspire them too much. They like him because he treats them with just slightly more respect than some of the other teachers. The only thing in Henry’s life that means anything is his relationship with Erica (Sami Gayle), a teenage prostitute. No, they never have sex – he treats her like a younger sister, gradually getting her to believe that she is worth something. But if this is a triumph, it is offset by his relationship with one of his students – Meredith (Betty Kaye), who thinks Henry is the one person who sees her for who she really is – the truth is, he barely notices her.

Directed by Tony Kaye, from a screenplay by Carl Lund, Detachment, is perhaps the darkest movie about teaching that I can recall. We have some interesting movies about teachers in the last few years – from Laurent Cantent’s brilliant The Class to the Canadian film Monsieur Lazhar, to the drug addicted teacher at the heart of Half Nelson. These movies show just how soul crushingly hard teaching can be, but also how rewarding it can be. There is nothing rewarding about teaching in Detachment. Henry is just trying to go through his day, and the teachers who are the most effective in the movie – like James Caan – are the ones who allow all the insults and apathy of their student’s role off their backs. Lucy Liu has a great scene as the guidance counsellor as he snaps at a female student, telling her she has no future, because she doesn’t give a shit, and the only thing she will ever succeed at is getting men to fuck her. That believing in something is hard and takes character – it takes nothing to give up. Harsh, perhaps a little clichéd, but true.

Tony Kaye made his debut film, American History X in 1998, and despite the fact that it has become a minor classic, his battle with the studio, and star Edward Norton, pretty much ruined his career. His documentary, Lake of Fire, is one of the finest of the last decade, and the best doc you will ever see on abortion. Now finally, he has made a follow-up feature, and he gets a great ensemble cast to participate. Most of them, like Marcia Gay Harden, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Tim Blake Nelson, Blythe Danner and the aforementioned Lucy Liu and James Caan, only have a couple of scenes. This really is Brody's movie, and he is great in the lead role. His Henry has, as the title suggests, grown detached from the world around him, and his job. He no longer really gives a shit about anything. Erica slowly draws him back into life, but is it too late?

Detachment is not a great film – it remains a little clichéd, a little too dark to really be believed. And yet, it held my attention throughout. Kaye knows how to direct and makes this a visually interesting film, centered on Adrien Brody’s face, a mask of indifference hiding something deeper and darker. Yes, the movie reaches a little too far at times, but I didn’t mind. I’m sure all teachers will see at least a little bit of themselves in this film.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games *** ½ Directed by: Gary Ross.
Written by: Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray based on the book by Suzanne Collins.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen), Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark), Woody Harrelson (Haymitch Abernathy), Elizabeth Banks (Effie Trinket), Stanley Tucci (Caesar Flickerman), Donald Sutherland (President Snow), Wes Bentley (Seneca Crane), Lenny Kravitz (Cinna), Willow Shields (Primrose Everdeen), Liam Hemsworth (Gale Hawthorne), Paula Malcomson (Katniss' Mother), Toby Jones (Claudius Templesmith), Amandla Stenberg (Rue), Dayo Okeniyi (Thresh), Leven Rambin (Glimmer), Jack Quaid (Marvel), Latarsha Rose (Portia), Alexander Ludwig (Cato), Isabelle Fuhrman (Clove).

The Hunger Games is a very good movie based on a great book. Yes, I know that The Hunger Games books are aimed at teenagers, but as a series they are as good as Harry Potter, and much better than Twilight. Fans of the book will likely like the movie more than non-fans – because they will be better able to fill in the gaps. The movie doesn’t change anything from the book – but it does leave out a few details – and it’s in the details that make this series go from very good to great.

The movie opens in a dystopian future. A failed revolution decades before has left the Capitol all powerful, and the other districts trembling in fear. There are 12 districts outside the Capitol – each poorer than the ahead of it, and they live in fear because the 13^th District was destroyed by the Capitol. One of the ways in which the Capitol keeps the District under their thumb, living in fear, is The Hunger Games – an annual event in which one teenager boy and one teenage girl from each district are put into a huge arena, and left to fight till the death. To the people in the Capitol, this is all little more than reality TV taken to the extreme – and of course they love it. For everyone else, it can literally be life or death.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is from District 12. She has been the sole provider for her mother and younger sister since her father died years ago. At the “Reaping”, the draw to see who gets the “honor” of taking part in The Hunger Games, she is shocked and horrified when her young sister Prim is selected – without thinking, Katniss steps up and volunteers to go in her place. For the boys, it is Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) who is selected. So, they board a train for the Capitol along with their “mentor” Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) – a former winner of the Games – to participate.

What the movie gets right about the book is the propulsive, brutal energy of the novel. The movie doesn’t soften the blow of the violence – even if it may be less bloody than it should be, in order to get a PG-13 rating in America. When the games start, it is still kids killing kids – some with brutal, unrelenting glee, some reluctantly, but everyone does what they need to do to survive. Some have pointed out the similarity between The Hunger Games and the Japanese film Battle Royale – a true masterpiece – and it’s true they have similarities. But then, so does The Hunger Games and two Stephen King stories – The Long Walk and The Running Man. And of course, you can trace this basic premise back to William Golding’s literally masterwork The Lord of the Flies.  The idea of kids killing kids, or people dying for the entertainment of others, is not an overly original idea, but it is one that when done properly still retains an undeniable power.

What made The Hunger Games, as a book, stand out to me is that addition to the kids killing kids angle, it was also a dead on media satire. Katniss becomes a star at the games, not because of who she is, but of how she looks. Aided by a stylist, Katniss looks great, and hence garners fans. When she and Peeta, with the advice of Haymitch, learn to play the media and the audience, to become stars. The movie implicates the viewers in the Capitol – and by extension the readers of the book – in the bloodlust on display in the book. The over the top TV show produced by The Hunger Games is little more than an extension of the current reality TV shows. This is the aspect of the book that made The Hunger Games great – and it is mainly missing from the movie. The audience is barely viewed, and the movie rushes through too much of the rest. And that’s a shame.

But The Hunger Games is still a very good movie. For one thing, they have found the perfect Katniss in Jennifer Lawrence. I didn’t realize it before, but her Oscar nominated performance in Winter’s Bone shares a lot in common with Katniss – both being strong, self-reliant, responsible teenagers who are effectively raising their siblings in a world that doesn’t give a shit about her. Lawrence carries the movie and it is a great performance. Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks -  as a representative from the Capitol, Stanley Tucci – as an over the top TV personality – and Donald Sutherland as the evil President provide effective support. Co-writer and director Gary Ross, who was an odd choice for the material, does a very good job behind the camera, keeping the pace going, and giving the movie the violent edge it needs.

The Hunger Games stops short of being a great movie because it doesn’t push things far enough. Perhaps it was simply a question of running time – something had to go, and it’s easier to cut satire than violence. But hopefully the next two movies – which will almost certainly be made and as quickly as possible now – goes a little farther. The series is going to get much, much darker before it ends – and the filmmakers need to push themselves farther.

Movie Review: The Turin Horse

Friday, March 23, 2012

Movie Review: The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse *** ½ Directed by: Béla Tarr.
Written by: László Krasznahorkai & Béla Tarr.
Starring: János Derzsi (Ohlsdorfer), Erika Bók (Ohlsdorfer's daughter), Mihály Kormos (Bernhard).

One of the gaps in my cinematic knowledge has always been Bela Tarr. Despite having made some highly acclaimed films – including Damnation, Sanantango, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Man from London (featuring on my favorite actress – Tilda Swinton), I have somehow managed never to see one of his films. I have always meant to, but for whatever reason, just never have. Apparently his most recent film, The Turin Horse, will be his last – even though he’s not yet 60, he has decided to walk away. We’ll see if that happens or not – but on the basis of this film, I hope it’s not true. I am now more convinced than ever that I need to see some of his earlier films – The Turin Horse is a masterfully made film, entrancing, fascinating, almost impenetrable. I am sure that many – perhaps even most – audience members would hate the film. It is slow, not deliberately paced which is a critical euphemism for slow, but really slow. Not a whole lot happens in the film. There is little to no dialogue, and the one time someone opens their mouth and delivers a long speech, it is promptly dismissed as bullshit by the main character. It is about the long, slow march to death – to nothingness. Perhaps it’s just the characters in this movie that are doomed, but perhaps it’s the world at large. For this movie, they amount to the same thing.

The movie opens with a narrator telling us a story of Frederic Nietzsche, who one day walked outside his Turin apartment, saw a cab driver abusing his horse, and this was the last straw for him before he retreated into syphilitic madness to live out the rest of his days. Of the horse, the narrator informs us, we know nothing. That this movie is about a man and his horse doesn’t necessarily mean that it meant to be the same horse Nietzsche saw – there is nothing in the movie that even suggests that we are in Italy – it looks much more like Tarr’s own Hungary – but the story is still relevant to the movie. Because what we see may just be the last straw before madness – or nothingness – as well.

The movie opens with a long shot showing Ohlsdorfer, the main character, driving his horse back from town. The camera keeps the horse, and the work he is doing to pull Ohlsdorfer and his cart. The shot goes on for minutes on end, working, straining. When they finally reach home, Ohlsdorfer puts the horse in the barn – at which point, the horse will completely give up. He will refuse to work, refuse to eat or drink, for the rest of the movie. Meanwhile Ohlsdorfer and his daughter subsist on a paltry diet of one potato, and a kind of brandy. Tarr repeats the routines of these two – the preparation of the meals, the daughter trying to feed to horse, or going to the well to get water – which one morning, she discovers has run completely dry – and one or both of them just staring out the window at the nothingness around them. They are visited twice – first by a neighbor, who informs them the nearby town has just “blown away”, and he is the one who goes on the long rant about the world, that the father dismisses as bullshit. And once by a group of gypsys, who leave behind a religious pamphlet that the daughter reads aloud from when they leave.

What does The Turin Horse mean? The movie resists easy interpretations because there is not much dialogue, and when there is, it is quickly dismissed. Is this the end of the world? It may well be. Why else does the well run dry? Why else does the horse refuse to the move? Why else do the father and daughter turn around and return to their farm after they determined they had to leave. The camera in that scene shows father, daughter and horse walk over a hill, and then a few minutes later return. What made them turn back? Tarr never says.

I found myself transfixed by the movie, despite the slow pace and despite the lack of dialogue. I tried, for two and a half hours, to figure out what it was all about, and never quite did. Although their styles are very different, I was reminded of the work of Andrei Tarkovsky while watching this film – because of the slow pace and the way their work resists those easy interpretations. Neither director does all the work for the audience – you have to do a lot of it yourself. And yet, Tarr also warned in interviews not to try and read some profound statement in The Turin Horse – keep it simple was his advice.

I was reminded of Tarkovsky in another way to – in that I admired the film more than I actually loved it. Tarr is a master filmmaker – and the black and white cinematography of the movie is brilliant, as is his control, his lack of editing. It is a brilliant movie in many ways, and yet I never quite loved it. To a certain audience, The Turin Horse will be the best film of the year. To some, it will be the worst. To me, I admired the film so much, that even if I didn’t quite love the film, I have to admit, you will not see many films more challenging this year.

TV Movie Review: Game Change

TV Movie Review: Game Change

Game Change *** ½

Directed by: Jay Roach.

Written by: Danny Strong based on the book by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann.

Starring: Julianne Moore (Sarah Palin), Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt), Ed Harris (John McCain), Peter MacNicol (Rick Davis), Jamey Sheridan (Mark Salter), Sarah Paulson (Nicolle Wallace), Ron Livingston (Mark Wallace), David Barry Gray (Todd Palin), Larry Sullivan (Chris Edwards), Mikal Evans (Bexie Nobles), Colby French (Tucker Eskew), Bruce Altman (Fred Davis), Spencer Garrett (Steve Biegun), Brian Howe (Randy Scheunemann), John Rothman (A.B. Culvahouse), Austin Pendleton (Senator Joe Lieberman).

No one is neutral when it comes to Sarah Palin. You either admire her as a straight-talking, down to earth hockey mom and political maverick, or think she’s a dangerously ignorant woman who has no idea what she’s talking about. The best thing about Game Change, which may well turn out to be the best made for TV movie of the year, is that (despite what Fox News says) it is neither a hit piece, trying to make you hate Palin, nor is it a love letter to the woman. You will almost certainly leave Game Change feeling the same way about Palin as you did when the movie started – love her or hate her – but if you watch the movie with an open mind, you may just feel a little bit of sympathy for her.

The movie opens with the McCain campaign in trouble. Barack Obama has become more than a political candidate – but a genuine celebrity. People absolutely love him, and don’t really care about his lack of experience. McCain (Ed Harris), a professional politician for decades, cannot understand how he is losing by so much to Obama. His campaign manager, Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) thinks they need a game change – something to counteract Obama’s momentum. McCain wanted to have Joe Lieberman – a former Democrat, now an Independent, as his running mate but he won’t do them any good in trying to beat Obama. Neither with Tim Pawlenty or Chris Christie or any of the other Republicans who everyone thinks he should choose from. They want something BIG – and Schmidt seems to thinks he has found it in the newly elected Governor of Alaska – Sarah Palin. The Republican base will love her – which McCain needs to keep them happy – but she is also pretty, charming and funny – not to mention a woman, which may help to win over some female voters, already mad that Hilary Clinton lost to Obama in the Democratic primaries. So, they decide on Palin, but she needs to be vetted – a process that normally takes months, but they only have 5 days. They think all that doesn’t matter, and go ahead with her. But Palin is more than they bargained for – she has no idea about foreign policy, and dangerously little knowledge of domestic policy. Yet, she is confident beyond what knowledge base she does have – she insists on doing things her own way. Not only that, but she will not listen to any of her handlers – she sometimes goes nearly catatonic and shuts out everything around her. She’s a maverick all right.

Most of the major facts in the movie are not really in conflict – Palin really did cite seeing Russia from Alaska as part of her Foreign Policy experience, the infamous Katie Couric interview was not an example of “Gotcha” journalism, but a fair interview that exposed Palin’s lack of knowledge. It also shows just how charming Palin can be – how good she is at speaking, even if she has no idea what she’s talking about, she’s charming when doing it.

Julianne Moore delivers an amazing performance as Palin – she goes deeper than Tina Fey’s spot on impression on SNL that year, to show a woman who is confident she can do anything, who gets in way over her head, and for a while cannot handle it. You feel sympathy for her when she is simply a woman in over her head, struggling to stay afloat. When people take shots at her daughter Bristol – who whatever you think about her, was a pregnant teenager, which would be hard enough without a National spotlight on her – or on her disabled son Trig was inexcusable. But as she struggles to stay afloat, and she because more and more famous, and gets more and more adoring fans, who do not care about her shortcomings, she becomes something of a political monster – she begins to think that she is the real star of the campaign – because in essence, she is – and starts to think she can call all the shots. No one, not Schmidt, not even McCain, can control her.

Woody Harrelson deserves a great deal of credit for his performance as well – he is a smart political mind, who wanted a game change, and got it, but had no idea of the can of worms he was going to open. Ed Harris makes McCain into a very sympathetic man – a man of principle, who loses them in his quest to become President, and doesn’t see that until it’s too late. Late in the campaign, he laments that this was not the campaign he wanted to run – the attacks on Barack Obama, that had become racially motivated and hate filled, shocked him. The other key performance is by Sarah Paulson, as the McCain staffer assigned to be Palin’s handler, who cannot believe what she has to work with.

Directed by Jay Roach, who started making comedies like Austin Powers and Meet the Parents, but has recently moved to HBO to make political films like this, and Recount, from a few years ago. This is an intelligent, well-acted, well written and well directed film. In years past, this could have easily been a theatrical movie, but now, sadly, we know very few people would go see it. So HBO fills the void, and has made a wonderful political drama. I’m sad that this movie had to be made for HBO – but I am happy that it got made it all. For political junkies, Game Change is a must see.