Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

“W.” (2008)

Directed by Oliver Stone

Satisfaction:Thrilled Tags: Oliver Stone, Blog-a-Thon, Political

NOTE: This review is also a contribution to the Politics & Movies Blog-a-Thon at The Cooler.

Junior’s Appeal

Recently, when a Dallas sports radio host celebrated a milestone show, he was surprised when a special guest phoned in for a live congratulatory call. It was President George W. Bush. I was surprised as well, but if you’ll remember, President Bush once owned this area’s baseball club, the Texas Rangers. He and the host knew each other well, and they reminisced of times when the then-governor would come on the show, just to be lambasted by the host for bad baseball decisions. “Only, back then, you were just ‘W.’ Now it’s ‘Mr. President,’” the host said.

Something struck me as I listened: I genuinely liked George W. Bush. For nearly 8 years, this man has frustrated me with his politics and choices. He’s become so ridiculed that you can almost put President Bush jokes on the same level as Catholic, Jewish, and Polish jokes. Yet, this gesture and conversation confirmed what I had suspected for years: if George W. wasn’t the president, I’d find him to be very charming and personable. These qualities definitely played a part in getting him elected twice, but I think that charm holds more.

In W., Karl Rove (Toby Jones) sees this too. He tells George W. (Josh Brolin) that he has a special touch capable of taking him places, but his problem remains that he hasn’t done anything significant yet. Strong words to say about the man that we just watched pledging at Yale, working an oil drill, owning the aforementioned Rangers, running for Congress…. Of course, all of that seems like nothing compared to his dad’s (James Cromwell) political success. The father Bush (or, “Poppy” as W. calls him) has very high standards, so when “Junior” ends up quitting job after job and nearly knocking up a local girl, his dad can only express deep disappointment. It affects W. more than he’ll let anyone know, and Oliver Stone seeks to use this as a catalyst for many of the decisions that the young man soon makes.

One Man in His Time Plays Many Parts

Brolin portrays the younger W. excellently, mixing plenty of “Bush-isms” into the persona of the Texan without being hammy or gimmicky. Because W.’s youth was not nearly as public as his adulthood, it frees Brolin to make the character his own without the need to mimic the real life persona’s every mannerism. Leading up to the presidency, we slowly see W. becoming the man we see in public, but once we are shown Bush in full presidency, that incremental progress jumps. Mannerisms and traits go from being hinted at to being full blown in no time flat.

Brolin sees Bush as a man unsure of what he’s supposed to do. W. attends Yale and gets into Harvard Business, but only to prove his capabilities to his father. At first he lacks enough motivation or conviction to work at jobs he himself asks for, but as he grows, we see him do the opposite. He begins pursuing goals his father would approve of, but he himself may not. But he does so in earnest.

I liked that, while Junior’s initial intentions may not have been the healthiest, he pursues them honestly—the best way he knows how. After losing a Congressional race to a Democrat whose platform was essentially “I’m a local, God-fearing man and Bush ain’t,” W. vows to never be out-Texaned or out-Christianed again. So, does he put up a false spiritual exterior? No, he looks up to the heavens and actively pursues God.

A moving scene at a small church group meeting has W., now a sober Christian, feeling that he’s still not quite “there.” Something nags at him. He comes to these meetings, but that “it factor” that he knows he should be feeling still eludes him. The scene continues as Reverend Hudd (Stacy Keache) encourages, advises, and prays for Junior. In this scene, Brolin plays his character as a man who genuinely wants this special Christian experience, but fears what that may mean. When Hudd tells Bush to treat every human with the love you would show to someone who was going to die at midnight, the struggle in Junior’s face gave me a chill.

As with too many other supporting players in W., Jeffrey Wright’s Colin Powell is painful to watch for most of the film, the faux-gravelly voice almost unbearable. But there’s a scene near the end where Powell, the lone opposition to the plan to invade Iraq, pleads and attempts to reason with the cabinet. What a joy to see acting that can transcend any barriers that hinder it, even if those barriers are somewhat self-imposed; a wonderful actor, Wright shines through the makeup and bad voice in this particular scene.

The Progressive Quality of Acting

I noted something in W. that I find myself recognizing in several other films. The acting seems to get more natural as the film progresses. But I find that puzzling, because I don’t understand how that can be possible. Films rarely shoot chronologically, so I don’t see how the acting, individually or collectively, could progress in quality.

Still, this is how it felt when I saw this film. The opening scene, taking place during Bush’s presidency, seemed so rough, and the actors seemed to lack any sort of groove or atmosphere, but when I see other scenes of the presidency later in the film, Brolin, Wright, and the others feel like they’ve grown into the roles instead of trying to pilot them.

Amazingly, it’s only recently occurred to me that perhaps it’s not the acting progressing in quality, but rather my perception as I become more engrossed into the film’s world. In other words, these characters feel more natural as I get to know them better. I suppose that’s how it might be with every film. Film beginnings seem so odd in hindsight, as they feel worlds apart from what you’ve eventually seen in the rest of the movie. The filmmaker has the task of trying to suck you into the story and into the characters as quickly as possible so that he may continue with the film. That could explain why Stone chose to start W. not at the beginning, but during the presidency. It’s immediately familiar to us. This Bush, we know. We know Rice (Thandie Newton), we know Powell, we know Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss, great as usual). It’s the director’s attempt to familiarize us as quickly as possible so that he could get to the real story that he wants to tell.

In that respect, it’s not an entirely successful plan. At least it wasn’t for me. As mentioned, the opening felt like a gathering of impersonators more than anything else. Yet a little over an hour later, these same “impersonators” felt more like characters. Perhaps that’s another way that films, in general, are subjective.

Oliver Stone’s Intentions

Stone’s insistence on rushing the film into production for a pre-Election ‘08 release seemed like a sure sign that his intentions were Michael Moore-esque in nature; “Don’t vote Republican unless you want more of this!” Having seen W., I honestly don’t think those are his intentions—at least not anymore. No, the nature of W. feels far different. As others have pointed out, the majority of Stone’s work in this film has been stringing together the “high points” of recent history into a narrative and filling in the empty spots with some interpretations. It’s nothing earth shattering and nothing that would change anyone’s political views of our president one way or another. In that sense, it’s very easy to see W. as a film of no consequence in the long run. But I think that’s missing the point.

Stone aims for closure. When a girlfriend would break up with me, I would often attempt to get the whole story. I felt that if perhaps I knew why this was happening, I could accept the finality of it. It helped me know what was real, what were lies, and what I could now do about it. For the United States, the past 8 years have been very strange, and most Americans agree that the end of Bush’s presidency marks the end of a very specific time period. Stone wishes to help us sum it up and tie it with a bow by giving us a possible explanation for what we’ve just witnessed and been a part of. He’s saying, “You know the big stuff. Here’s the little stuff that may have led to the big stuff. Now that you see and comprehend this, we can move on.”

But who cares what I think? Buy W. from Amazon and give Bohemian Cinema a little kickback. Proceeds go to feeding and providing more movies for aspiring film bloggers in the Pacheco household.