George W. Bush is easy to hate. More than other single individual, he is responsible for our illegal attack on Iraq and our terribly flawed war effort after we arrived; for the lack of moral leadership our country has among nations; for the frightening extension of the executive branch of government; for our willingness to imprison without trial and to torture; for the unprecedented spying on American citizens; and now for leading us into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
So why would anyone want to make a movie about W.? “Because he’s larger than life,” says Oliver Stone, and I would agree with him. George W. Bush is one of those real people who is so unreal that as a fictional character, he would hardly be believable–in other words, as the incredulous onlooker at Bush in action so often says: “You can’t make this stuff up.”
And yet the real W. is a living, breathing human being who is more like ourselves than different, and to Josh Brolin’s credit, that’s how the actor plays him. This film is not a satire. It is a picture of a man who is ambitious, like many other men; who, like many others, can’t quite find his niche; who, like all too many guys, drinks too much and has sex with women he has no intention of marrying; and who, like many such men, finally marries a good woman who stands by him.
The one thing that makes W. different from most of the rest of us lost and searching souls is that he has a rich and powerful Poppy (played beautifully by James Cromwell) who keeps bailing him out. And another thing: W. just isn’t all that bright. And so he can be manipulated by those around him–people who are smarter and more nefarious than W. could ever think to be. Richard Dreyfus leaves his usual fast-talking character behind to become the oily snake-in-the-cabinet Dick Cheney.
W. knows he has been going down the wrong path, and so he decides he needs to quit drinking and to be “saved.” Had he not made these changes, he surely would have become the unseen, unheard of, ignominous Bush son that his parents feared he would be. But Carl Rove guided him to victory as the Governor of Texas, and then on to the White House for two terms. Books will be written for a hundred years about how that happened, but it did–enough said.
Josh Brolin, though, lets us in on the struggle of the man–to please his father, to overcome his alcoholism, to make something of himself. W. thinks he is “called” to become President, and he goes forward with the moral certainty that is the hallmark of those who are not educated or reflective. He is a man who is in way over his head. Way, way over his head. And because he is surrounded with toadies, he cannot see a way out, he can only “stay the course.”
“W.” is not a great movie–it never brings us to the universal realm that a greater film perhaps could have. In the end, it is topical, and it will die with the times. But I liked the film because it humanizes a man who has now become a character to most of us. The film reminded me that George Bush must be devastated right now, and he must be confused. He must surely wonder how his advisors and his God could have let him go so wrong. Maybe he wanted to grow up and be a man and give, but he just didn’t have the capacity for the job of President. Which, of course, is a vast understatement. I’m sorry for him, and I’m sorry for this country.
