Let's get this out of the way...I love HBO. I know it's trendy to say so, but, in terms of original television programming, no one holds a candle to them. So, a year or so ago, when I read that they were going to be adapting Game Change, the widely heralded account of the 2008 Presidential Election, I was, to say the least, very intrigued.
Then came the news that they were skipping the vast majority of the book, which focused almost entirely on the race between then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The section on internal squabbles in the McCain-Palin campaign is, as I understand it (I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't read the book), more or less an afterthought. I was a little surprised that they would go this route, not because HBO is known for being politically balanced, but because the McCain-Palin issues seemed far less interesting.
Now, the conservative conspiracy theorist in me wants to hypothesize that they're intent was to make Republicans look bad in a Presidential election year and embarrass Democrats' Public Enemy #1: Sarah Palin. But, I don't really think that's the case. Don't get me wrong, there was bias at play here, but I think it was more of the "Barack Obama is so wonderful there's no way we can do him justice in a movie" type of bias. I don't think anyone really thought that Sarah Palin -- who is the focus of most of the movie's negative attention -- was going to be a legitimate presidential candidate, so it's hard to conclude that this movie was made for the purpose of killing her hypothetical campaign.
Anyway, so, right out of the gate, this movie had me a little skeptical. I mean, I expected it to be good -- and it is -- but my expectations were not through the roof. Ultimately, I think my expectations were pretty spot on.
The movie starts in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Barack Obama is about to officially become the first African American presidential nominee of a major party and the McCain campaign, desperate to make a splash of their own, decides it needs a woman on the ticket. The number of exciting GOP women in politics was small at the time and, according to the movie, most of the candidates were evaluated, at least initially, via YouTube.
It's then that they discover Sarah Palin, the first term governor of Alaska. She's attractive, exciting, and charismatic. She's everything they're looking for. In what proves to be a pivotal moment and a horrible campaign blunder, she is vetted and interviewed without anyone asking her a single question about policy. As the campaign wears on, this mistake blows up in everyone's face.
Overall, this is a good movie. It has some fine performances -- Woody Harrelson as McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt stood out the most for me -- and it moves along an intriguing and satisfying pace. Much has been said of Julianne Moore's performance as Sarah Palin, which is also very good. But, to be honest, as one who has spent a lot of watching, listening to, and getting insanely annoyed by Sarah Palin, I found it to be more caricature than anything else. It's certainly more realistic and nuanced than, say, Tina Fey's portray on SNL...but it's not far off.
The biggest problem with the movie is not its political bias -- I typically don't have a problem with bias so long as the movie is well made. The problem is that there's no new revelations. With the exception of a few scenes -- which are the subject of some debate among people who were there -- the movie is basically telling a story we all already know. There's no new revelations about what makes these well-known people tick. For politicos like myself, everything depicted in the movie was already fresh on our minds, so there's very little to reflect on and very few realizations that can be made as a result.
Furthermore, it's a tad annoying that the people who come off the best in the movie are the ones who were most responsible for Palin's nomination and many of her blunders. Harrelson's Schmidt is basically portrayed as a saint. Sure, he gets some blame for the mistakes in the vetting process, but, once he realizes how terrible Palin really is, he becomes simpatico with the filmmakers' bias and therefore an extremely sympathetic character. The same can be said for Palin's press secretary Nicolle Wallace, who, in the end, breaks down crying when she admits to Schmidt that she couldn't bring herself to vote. Not surprisingly, these two people were the ones who cooperated the most both with the making of the movie and the writing of the book.
Don't get me wrong, all of this doesn't make Game Change a bad movie. Like I said, it is well-acted and exceptionally well-written as far as the dialogue goes. It brought back distinct memories of how I felt during this campaign -- the excitement after Palin's convention speech, the shock and denial after her TV interviews, and the final realization that, though she didn't have the goods to be Vice President of the United States, many, many people would refuse to ever acknowledge that fact.
But, much like Oliver Stone's W from a few years back, this appears to be a movie about a political figure wherein all the well-known gaffes and foibles are just recreated on screen so that those on the opposite end of the political spectrum can revel in how much they dislike the person being depicted. As one who generally dislikes Sarah Palin and, more specifically, the role she plays in current American politics, I enjoyed it on that level. But, as a fan of movies and of good story-telling, I thought it was just alright.
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