Signis

Game Change

(JPEG)

US, 2012, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris, Sarah Paulson, Peter MacNicoll. Directed by Jay Roach.

Game Change is one of those films made by Home Box Office for television screening in the US with possible theatrical release around the world. Other films like this are You Don’t Know Jack (Al Pacino as Dr Jack Kevorkian) and Too Big To Fail (about the financial crash of 2008). In Australia, they are first screened on pay television channels.

Another of these films was Recount, a drama about the dispute in Florida, 2000, which determined that George W. Bush would be president rather than Al Gore. That film was directed by Jay Roach who directs this story of the Republican nomination campaign in 2008, focusing on Sarah Palin. (Jay Roach is better known for comedies, the Austin Powers satires and the Meet the Fockers films.)

It is amazing how quickly current American political stories are treated in feature films (think Oliver Stone’s W and the story of the two Presidents Bush or Fair Game, the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by the Bush Administration after her husband questioned Iraq’s buying uranium from Africa and the claims about weapons of mass destruction).

Only very young audiences will not have memories of JohnMcCain’s introduction of the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running-mate in 2008. It seemed a good idea at the moment, but the moment was comparatively short, as revelations about the governor’s actions and the law concerning her husband emerged and, much more importantly, her ignorance about the world and contemporary politics. While she drew quite a following and boosted donations for the campaign, she was not credible as a possible President and President Obama was elected.

This film is based on part of a book by reporters on the politics of 2008, "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime" by Mark Halperin with John Heilemann.

At the centre of the film is Julianne Moore, so convincing in look, manner, speech as Sarah Palin - but, the film, while showing her limitations and presumptions, does humanise her in many ways. She is more vulnerable than she thinks. Her folksiness has some initial charm but cannot last and she feels isolated from her family, gets moody with her advisers, wants to be loyal to McCain (who keeps his distance from her, meeting her rarely during the campaign). One begins to feel sorry for her as she, still willingly, is trapped in circumstances beyond her. There is a sequence, with some pathos as well as having a dig, where we see Sarah Palin watching Tina Fey’s send-up of her on Saturday Night Live. But, with the vulnerability, Sarah Palin is still quite tough as well.

The other focus of the film is not McCain himself (well played, with a swearing mouth) by Ed Harris who emerges as intensely ambitious, often dismayed by Sarah Palin, but shocked at the rabble-roused hostility and slander on Barack Obama. Rather, we stay with Steve Schmidt, with a fine performance by Woody Harrelson. He is reluctant to join the campaign but is persuaded by McCain. He goes along with the plan for nominating Sarah Palin, realises eventually that she can perform effectively by acting with prepared answers but soon regrets the political choice doomed to fail and has to control her despite her growing hostility towards him and her firing her speechwriter. The film is certainly interesting in presenting the characters and their behaviour, but there is great interest in spending two hours being taken into the machinations, power struggles and manoeuvres behind the scenes.

An interesting release for 2012, a presidential election year.

Peter Malone