A curious George

In 'W.,' Oliver Stone frames his biopic as a provocative and uniquely American tale of family politics

October 17, 2008|Ty Burr, Globe Staff

Is there an easier target than a lame duck? "W.," the first biopic ever made about a sitting US president, is either two years too late or 15 too early. George W. Bush hardly seems to matter anymore; attention has shifted to the two men who are vying to clean up the mess his administration has left behind. As it should. Who needs more Dubya taunting when there's work to be done?

The irony is that Oliver Stone is aiming for something rather different here, and the results still feel tentative. For his third "president" film (the others being "JFK" and the much-underrated "Nixon"), the lightning-rod director casts the life of the 43d commander in chief as a peculiarly American tragedy: The story of a child of privilege who's also the family screw-up, whose aching need to prove himself to his father delivers his country into the hands of ambitious and predatory men.

Or, as the woman behind me said as the end-credits rolled, "I . . . I felt sorry for him."

Her confusion will be shared by many - partisans of the left will never extend compassion to George W. Bush and those on the right don't want this kind of sympathy - but it's a novel approach, and when it works, "W." can take your breath away. When it doesn't, you can feel Stone still working out his feelings toward the man. There's a lot of Charles Foster Kane in "W.," and some of Shakespeare's Richard II. There's also more than a little Oliver Stone.

Josh Brolin ("No Country for Old Men") plays the president, and it's an honorable performance, wholly lacking in cheap shots. (The soundtrack full of tinny pomp-and-circumstance tunes picks up that slack.) This Dubya is simple rather than simple-minded, a good old boy who acts first and thinks later, if at all. He's a decent sort, spoiled but likably cocky, and his biggest flaw is that he doesn't have the skills to articulate what's eating his insides out.

That would be his father, George H.W. Bush, played by James Cromwell ("L.A. Confidential") as a patient but peremptory blueblood king. Dubya knows he'll never measure up to Poppy's standards - so does Poppy and so do we; anyway, brother Jeb (Jason Ritter) has been anointed heir apparent - and the frustration turns him to drink, rebellion, God, and politics, in that order.

"W." unfolds in two collage-like narrative streams: The series of White House meetings in 2003 leading up to the Iraq war and flashbacks to the many stages of George W. Bush's past. The former are where Stone pulls out the stops, and they are marvelously comic works of pseudo-history, cobbled together from the published memoirs of those who were there.