W. (2008)

Oliver Stone is thought of as a liberal film maker, and no doubt that’s were his politics lie, but behind the camera, perhaps especially of late, he can be a quite fair, and always (in his way) sympathetic chronicler of the story of post World War II America. From Platoon, to Nixon, and more recently World Trade Center (the last of which I didn’t like, but it was quite restrained politically), Stone puts forward a rending of a historical event or personality that while clearly embracing today’s conventional wisdom about the subject matter, is empathetic but none excusatory to its flawed characters. W. is one such rendering, with the current president seen as affable and well intentioned, but of limited ability, narrow focus, and easily manipulated. It’s a testament to the script, and especially Josh Brolin’s performance in the title role, that such a well known story can be so truly enveloping. We follow W. from his college day’s to midway into his presidency, we observe the development of his character through a prism of Shakespearian tragedy (my favorite way of viewing the Bush administration) and pop psychology, with a father complex always front and center. We like the young Bush, he’s an affable rouge, though his dad’s kind of a jerk to him, while none-the-less remaining every bit as well intentioned as W himself. Becoming born again and sober pulls our protagonist partway out of his psychological muck, though far from entirely, and while we feel the sincerity of his change, and see how it improves his life, we know it will never be able to compensate for what the film and nearly all the players seem to see as the man’s tragic shortcoming, namely that he is not Jeb.

Bush partisans may feel short changed that the highpoint of the man’s administration, namely his broadly lauded handling of events immediately post 9/11, are completely absent from the film. This is not a "complete" biography, you can get a book for that, but rather traces the man’s psychological development, with an eye on how it made the Iraq debacle possible. While future history might still see the 2003-? Iraq War as an accomplishment, it will surely never see its early handling as such (I largely blame Rumsfield for the logistical errors). You do however get both sides of the question of wether or not to go into Iraq, fairly presented as the situation would have seemed then, with the thinking and information that was prevalent and available to those who helped make the decision in 2002 and 2003. I can honestly say that there and then in that room, I would likely have gone with the Cheney faction. In the end Iraq became Bush’s Vietnam, his crucible, and unlike the often bulling Johnson who seems somehow forgiven for that conflict because we know it ate him up inside; Bush is often viewed as unmoved by the plight of the solders, to narrow minded, and to afraid to admit he was wrong to ever look at his decisions fairly and admit that he made some major mistakes. That is why to me the key scene in the film has to do with Cats (even though it is a litany of Bush dogs who make cameo appearances through the film).

One night in their bedroom in the White House residence W. is bemoaning his fate to his wife Laura, who lies in their bed reading a newspaper. She interrupts him to tell her husband that his favorite play is coming to town, she want’s to cheer him up. "Cat’s, now that’s something I’d stay up late for," the President responds. That George W. Bush’s favorite play would be the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Cat’s seems just perfect to me, it encapsulates everything about the man and his presidency. It’s sentimental kitsch, decidedly middlebrough in taste, maudlin, cloying, but sincere. Bush is somewhere between Rum-tum-tugger and Memories. It’s not that the man doesn’t care, it’s just he doesn’t know how to care, or do much of anything for that matter, in a high concept way. He’s limited to the emotional length and breath of Cat’s, when only Hemingway or Faulkner will do. So the story of W. exists in an uncertain space between Frank Capra movie and train wreak, and as both of those things will command the viewers attention, so to will this film. 4 ½ out of 5.