[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone.]
Review: HBO’s Game Change is like Days of our Lives for Republicans
By Jason Apuzzo. It used to be that a politician had to be a Kennedy to get a juicy, tell-all movie made about them.
On the odd chance that you can’t get enough of this year’s colorful Republican primaries – if lurid accusations of Newt Gingrich’s ‘open marriage’ or saucy rumors of Herman Cain’s romantic conquests haven’t been enough for you – or if you think all the pizazz went out of the campaign once Michelle Bachman left the race (can anyone else say “Obama is a socialist” with such a winning smile?), then HBO’s frothy Game Change, which debuts this Saturday March 10th, may be the remedy for you.
Game Change is pure political soap opera, and in fleeting moments it even makes for compelling drama – though to be fair, Game Change is probably not an accurate view into the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the 2008 McCain campaign, or into the personality of its megawatt star, Sarah Palin.
What the movie is, however, is a gossipy and occasionally colorful look at how much changed – at least in the world of Republican politics – when John McCain made the decision to select Sarah Palin as his running mate for the 2008 election.
And as the roiling 2012 campaign continues to make clear: a lot changed from that point forward.
There was an era, seemingly a lifetime ago, when the Republican Party appeared to be the quieter, more straight-laced of the two parties. Most people over 30 remember what that was like, back before Republican officeholders were expected to be celebrities.
Traditional Republican candidates were war veterans and businessmen, successful lawyers, sober Congressmen with dark suits and smiling families, genial chairmen of the local chamber of commerce. Think Mitch Daniels crossed with Phil Mickelson.
They were the type of person you’d want to buy real estate or aftershave from, or to lead your nephew into combat – but not necessarily build a Broadway show or rock opera around.
That, of course, was before the Palins came to town.
Game Change is HBO’s adaptation of the book of the same name about the 2008 Presidential election, penned by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Crucially, that book depicted both sides of the 2008 campaign – dwelling mostly on the epic Democratic Party primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, something left out completely from HBO’s movie.
That the film’s producers – who include Tom Hanks – dropped the Clinton-vs.-Obama side of the book altogether has opened Game Change up to legitimate charges of partisanship, as has the film’s depiction of Palin as mercurial and unbalanced.
And make no mistake: Game Change depicts Sarah Palin as flighty and temperamental, as a Hollywood-style diva who fires staffers on a whim, and as ignorant of the most basic facts about American history and governance.
Whether this depiction is believable, of course, is another question entirely.
Indeed, viewers will be free to question whether Palin really required briefings on the basic differences between the Afghanistan and Iraq wars (which seems unlikely, given that her son Track was deployed to Iraq), or on the elemental facts of World War II, or that she didn’t know what the Federal Reserve does.
Though even Palin’s most ardent supporters would hesitate to compare her to William F. Buckley in her eloquence or erudition, Game Change stretches the Palin-as-ignoramus cliché past the point of credibility.
Yet it’s important to point out that Game Change also depicts Palin as a caring mother, as passionate and sincere in her faith, and as the kind of charismatic, Capra-esque political star unseen in Republican circles since Ronald Reagan. It also depicts her as innocent of the most ridiculous charges made against her during the 2008 campaign: such as that she was a free-spending clothes horse, or that her baby Trig wasn’t even hers.
Game Change also shows how Palin’s energetic performances in high-pressure situations rescued the McCain campaign.
Game Change‘s story is simple. It’s August 2008 and the McCain campaign is in trouble. A smooth-talking young Senator named Barack Obama has not only improbably blown past Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, but is suddenly turning the Presidential race into a lopsided rout.
Top McCain advisor Steve Schmidt, played with warmth and intelligence by Woody Harrelson, decides that the campaign needs to roll the dice and select a ‘game changer’ as the vice presidential nominee. With the stakes getting higher and the clock ticking, McCain and his inner circle decide that the biggest game-changing move – outside of selecting Democrat Joe Lieberman as the VP – would be to select a woman for the ticket.
So with only five days left to vet the potential nominee, McCain’s team takes a chance and picks the exciting but little-known Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. And thus begins a high-stakes, behind-the-scenes battle waged between Palin and Schmidt as McCain’s circle begins to realize exactly how unconventional the feisty governor from Wasilla really is.
Game Change takes viewers through the big moments from Palin’s eight weeks as a VP candidate – from her knockout convention speech (delivered partly after the teleprompter failed), to the muffed interviews with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, to her effective debate performance against Joe Biden. We also see Palin dealing with the unimaginable overnight pressures of rescuing the McCain campaign – all while mothering a son with Down syndrome, a newly pregnant teenage daughter, and a son sent to Iraq.
All this while trying to look fabulous, prevent her emails from getting hacked, and nail the pronunciation of ‘Saakashvili.’
As Palin, Julianne Moore attempts the impossible: depicting someone who is already one of the most vivid, well-known personalities on the political scene. Unfortunately, in Game Change Moore’s Palin comes across as somehow smaller than Palin seems in real life – not nearly as self-assured or sassy. Moore seems too trapped recreating Palin’s accent and mannerisms to give the kind of full-bodied, Betty Davis-style performance the movie probably deserved. Moore plays Palin like an earnest librarian, rather than as a gun-toting Mama grizzly – and it doesn’t quite work.
Veteran actor Ed Harris fares better playing John McCain. Harris, as solid a performer as Hollywood has, captures McCain’s earthiness and personal integrity – although he misses McCain’s delightfully salty humor. In Game Change, McCain comes across as a crusty, honorable veteran trying to keep pace with bewildering changes in our political culture. He’s eager to win and to compete according to the new rules of American politics – but not at the cost his own honor or maverick style.
Game Change is actually something of a love-letter to old-school Republican centrists of the McCain variety (the kind currently driving the Romney campaign). How sincere the film is in this regard is open to question; a truly impartial film would’ve also included the original book’s depiction of the Democrat race, and risked airing dirty laundry on the other party’s side.
Game Change‘s biggest problem, however, is its incredibly clunky script – written with all the grace and subtlety of a Super PAC ad. With sparkling lines like “[t]hank you for cutting your mullet, Levi, it looks much better now,” or “they’re going to think it’s a Machiavellian/Jedi power play,” Game Change‘s dialogue sometimes sounds like a bad riff on Raising Arizona. Juvenile quips like “how does Dick Cheney sleep at night with his Darth Vader helmet on?” hardly help matters, either.
Mostly, though, Game Change is a gossipy, sporadically entertaining insider-tell-all look at a political campaign that continues to resonate four years later.
Game Change will likely do what most political movies made by Hollywood’s elite power brokers do these days: enrage conservatives, fill liberals with a fleeting sense of superiority, and drive HBO’s ratings down while the rest of us watch SportsCenter or Shahs of Sunset.
It’s too bad, too. It would’ve been interesting to watch a frothy version of this film featuring Hillary and Bill, Barack and Michelle. What, there’s no drama there?
Posted on March 5th, 2012 at 7:49am.
“…a truly impartial film would’ve also included the original book’s depiction of the Democrat race”
The ‘Democrat’ race?
Using the GOP’s favorite pejorative for the ‘Democratic’ Party is not the best idea when writing a supposedly unbiased review, wouldn’t you agree?
Chuck, scout’s honor – I actually didn’t know that was considered a pejorative term. Please take my word on that. I’m not as immersed in political media these days as you might think, so I wasn’t aware that there was a sensitivity there. I certainly wasn’t out to bust anybody’s chops.
Jason you write a very objective review about a typical neo-Communist Hollywood propaganda flick that no Patriot will watch, since most have long pulled the plug on HBO.
Thanks for the shout-out, Ronbo. I appreciate it.
HBO claims that “Game Change, the book, was applauded by audiences and pundits on both ends of the political spectrum.” Really? If this is true, just like the writers of the book, HBO doesn’t name any of their sources to back it up. There are plenty of people on the record however, who did not applaud John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s work.
Howard Kurtz wrote that the authors not identifying their sources was a “recurring weakness” in the book, and later added: The most cooperative sources may have gotten to spin the narrative their way, and no one – such as Steve Schmidt, the former McCain aide who has publicly criticized Palin – was pressed to be on the record.”
Don Campbell from USA Today called it: “A gossipy, behind-the-scenes presidential campaign book once again illustrates how the public is poorly served by some in the political press corps.”
There were people who were close to Palin during the 2008 campaign who took issue with Heilemann and Halperin’s work, however. During a conference call with reporters, Jason Recher, who worked for Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign, said that the book did not reflect reality.
“The ‘Game Change’ trailer doesn’t reflect anything I recall.” — Jason Recher, Advisor to the McCain Campaign who was with Governor Palin during nearly every waking moment of the ‘08 election.
Randy Scheunemann, who also worked as an adviser to Palin during the presidential campaign said: “If the book was very misleading, the movie’s going to be far worse.” Other current and former aides to Palin who attended the conference call, criticized Heilemann and Halperin “for writing about Palin when they weren’t physically there covering the things that were reported in the book.”
“Game Change,” which is to air March 10, depicts Scheunemann explaining to Palin that Germany was the antagonist in both World Wars. (In the scene, a note-taking Palin, played by Julianne Moore, does not indicate whether she knew this or not.)
“The idea that there was at any point that Gov. Palin expressed any uncertainty as to who were the various sides in World War I or World War II … or any other war is absolutely untrue,” Scheunemann said. “She was incredibly intelligent. She asked very informed questions. She was very interested and she wanted to understand John McCain’s view of foreign policy because she wanted to be the best possible vice presidential nominee.”
Scheunemann and Recher said they were contacted by the filmmakers, but their positive views of Palin, they said, were not incorporated into the script. The others said they were not contacted.
“We all know Palin sells and the dramatization of Palin sells even more,” said Stapleton, who, like Crawford and other Palin spokespeople, rarely if ever returned reporters’ phone calls. “This is sick. The media has gone too far. You accepted the false narrative of a couple of people who sought revenge and fabricated a story more than three years ago,” she said, referring to Schmidt and Wallace.
Thanks for the recap of all this – I appreciate it.
If people want an antidote to the hit pieces by HBO, one should take a look at the STARZ series BOSS. This series, starring conservative great Kelsey Grammar, gives us an in depth look into the very political machine (Chicago) that gave rise to such figures as Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, Bill Ayers, and the Daleys. In doing so, the viewer gains a better understanding of the Obama Administration and the mentality they live by. In this series, we witness how the politicians of this world are venom filled, power hungry (and sometimes groveling) manipulators who will betray or destroy ANYONE in the name of maintaining or expanding their power; while seducing the public with speeches, smiles, and looks. Their spouses are dangerous oportunists who are less in love with their spouses and more in love with the power that their spouses can bring them and will overlook their faults in exchange for more access to that power. The Union leaders are revealed to be ruthless thugs who know NO BOUNDS when enforcing their will or the will of the politicians they support. In addition, the audience discovers that the members of the “crusading media” are actually self righteous jackals who are also willing to betray and manipulate, NOT to report the facts, but to make sure that the story fits the narrative that they wish to force upon the public. Even the media’s “courageous whistleblowers” are shown to be corrupt individuals who are merely being SELECTIVE about which skeletons are dug up and will do what is neccessary to keep other skeletons buried. BOSS takes down the curtains and gives us a clear look into the world of the liberal CHicago machine that created, encouraged, and now protects Obama and his minions. The view of this machine and the people who ocupy it is definitely not pretty . This is the true narrative that the left does not wish reported.
Dear Sarah Palin:
The movie “Game Change” actually IS important. It is an invaluable lesson to all concerned Americans about what could have been placed in the control seat of our great country. It is deplorable that John McCain would have carelessly and selfishly allowed you to actually be
the Vice President of our United States. He should hang his head in shame for the rest of his
life.
In all honesty, I sincerely hope you get the psychological help you so desperately need. I’m sure if you had enjoyed good mental health, and you had had good moral and ethical values, you would have realized that, as a good American, you should have taken yourself out of the running.
Please try to answer the following two questions as objectively as possible:
1. Do you not believe that our United States deserve better than a VP who has no understanding of the serious issues that plague our nation?
2. Do you not believe that our United States deserve better than a VP who cannot keep track of the multitude of lies she’s told?
I wish your family and you good luck in the future.