Based on screenwriter Beau Willimon’s play ‘Farragut North,’ ‘The Ides of March’ is chilling despite the absence of a threat of violence and the slightest notions of peril. Clooney draws out the darker elements of the play in transposing the story to the screen, delivering one of the year’s best thrillers; a morality play that utilizes political savvy as a means of plumbing deeper ideals about desperate men in dire straits.

A new take on the political thriller, ‘The Ides of March’ is fashioned like a film noir with its seemingly defeated protagonist, conspiratorial elements, overwhelming cynicism, dark aesthetic and femme fatale. It reflects the current disturbing animosity between liberals and conservatives in Washington, D.C., putting the schism into focus.

 

Junior campaign manager Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is regarded as one of the best media minds in the country and a brilliant strategist despite appearing as if he could still be in college. Working under the ruthless Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) on the presidential campaign of Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney), Myers follows his boss to the White House. When a covert but innocent meeting with rival campaign manager Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) reveals disturbing details concerning the broader outlook of the election, Myers realizes Zara’s wrath and recognizes that his naivety could injure his work.

 

As the scope of the fallout slowly comes into focus, Myers falls for seductive 19-year-old intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood). In spending time with her, Myers comes across an earth-shattering secret that could spell the downfall of Morris and the Democratic Party. When he’s given little choice by the more experienced and manipulative powers overseeing him on both sides of the campaign, Myers might have no choice but to wield the secret as a weapon.

 

The film asserts that power does not necessarily come from the desire to ascend the political ladder but to preserve — or numbly come to terms with neglecting — loyalty and integrity. Even if the conflict between Myers and the three-headed monster of Zara, Duffy and Morris is not necessarily applicable to Washington, D.C., in its current state, the underlying motives are most certainly relevant.

 

Gosling is spellbinding as Myers in an Oscar-alerting performance, communicating a state of gnawing

agitation with subtle force. A considerably more likeable and charismatic figure in Willimon’s play, Gosling’s Myers is a more intense workaholic with a built-in edge. Myers embodies the vulnerability in the political battlefield. In his clashes with those more power hungry and diabolical, Myers proves he’s little more than a motherless cub alone in the jungle. But that can only happen if he channels the fury that can lead men to higher political posts while simultaneously damaging the already corrupt landscape of hatred and lies.

 

Clooney, who has a taste for challenging political fare, boldly interprets the eight scenes in Willimon’s play and includes Morris with a speaking part. Hoffman, Giamatti, Wood and Clooney are all in prime form, but the clearly superior acting is not what makes ‘The Ides of March’ so engrossing. If that were its greatest attribute it might as well have stayed on the stage. Photographed, lit and composed like a great McCarthy-era noir, ‘The Ides of March’ is the first great political thriller of the Obama era.