A movie review-The Ides of March

You have two handsome actors and two great character actors, how could you lose?

The Ides of March starts with the line 

"I'm not a Christian. I'm not an Atheist. I'm not Jewish. I'm not Muslim. My religion, what I believe in is called the Constitution of United States of America."

and is a suspenseful and intriguing drama about the inside workings of a primary campaign. The film was nominated for best adapted screenplay which included co-writer George Clooney who also directs and stars as a Governor running to be the democrats choice for president. He plays Mike Morris and in order to win he has surrounded himself with Junior Campaign

 manager Stephen Meyers played by Ryan Gosling and heading up his campaign is Paul Zara played by the cool talent of Philip Seymour Hoffman who unlike Stephen has been working on campaigns most of his adult life. They both work on and live with one goal in mind-To Get Morris Elected.

The job becomes a lot more complex and dangerous then Stephen thought. First there is the competition, whose campaign is being run by another tough as nails manager Tom Duffy played by the genus that is Paul Giamatti. At one point in the film he meets with Stephen who goes on to ask him to drop Morris, who he says is going to loose and to join his team. Stephen leaves the meeting unsure about what to do. Later he is comfronted about what was said during his talk with Duffy by a reporter (Marisa Tormei) who has been following the Morris campaign. If that wasn’t enough to deal with Stephen then meets and starts up a sexual relationship with a young female intern (Evan Rachel Wood)  who has secrets of her own. Finally there is another secret meeting between Stephen and a Democratic Senator named Franklin Thompson (Jeffrey Wright) in order to get him on Morris’s side.

Stephen’s world begins to fall apart and how he copes with everything is the real story of the film. If any of this makes you want to know what happens next then I have done my job and you should rent or tune into the Starz cable network and watch The Ides of March.

Spoiler line from the film-

Stephen-You can lie, you can cheat, you can start a war, you can bankrupt the country, but you can't fuck the interns. They get you for that.