The Ides of March, directed by George Clooney (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Leatherheads) follows the journey of one man's quest for finding and following what he believes in. Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is an up-and-coming campaign secretary for presidential hopeful Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney). When a political scandal threatens to upend his candidate's chances of presidency, Stephen must decide where his loyalties lie and if his candidate is in fact the man he thought him to be and make a decision on whether or not this man is the right man for the presidency.
We all know George Clooney, the classical good looking, smooth talking actor from such films as Oceans Trilogy, Solaris, Three Kings and a personal favourite of mine, O Brother Where Art Thou?. But this film is one of the few where Clooney is not only acting but directing too. Clooney does have some experience with direction as I mentioned at the beginning, he has already directed a few films although none of which were particularly outstanding. This time around, however, should prove to be a huge step forward as this film is an adaptation of a the play by Beau Willimon, which means he already has a solid platform to work from. This should shine through in the end result and really help develop the depth of character and plot which Clooney's other films were slightly lacking.
Ryan Gosling who is playing the lead character Stephen Myers is an excellent up-and-coming actor. He has such films under his belt as The Notebook, Blue Valentine, Crazy, Stupid, Love and Fracture so he has no lack of experience. This film will have him acting alongside the like of Geroge Clooney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, both big on screen presences. Because of this I hope Gosling's performance doesn't suffer as a result and end up with him being drowned out by these two huge actors. But Ryan has proven in the past that he can stand with the best of them, an example which immediately springs to mind is the film Fracture where he acts alongside Anthony Hopkins, but Ryan held his own and pulled of a great performance, so I am not worrying too much about this, it being only a minor concern.
So with such an impressive main cast and a very strong and experienced supporting cast, I cant imagine Clooney ran into too many problems whilst directing. This cast in general has great wealth of acting experience behind them as does Clooney himself, so i can imagine they complemented each other nicely. This film looks to be a slick, serious and politically entertaining film full with plot twists, conspiracies and may serve to enlighten the trials and tests which a Presidential candidate and their staff go through when trying to achieve the ultimate goal.
The Ides of March is in cinemas everywhere October 7.
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