Sometimes you come across a film whose only apparent aim is to make the viewer feel less intelligent - The Ides of March is one of those films. I thank George Clooney for this, as being director, blame lands at his door. The premise is straightforward enough - Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), an idealistic and ambitious young man, believes firmly in his boss and all that he stands for.

This boss is Senator Mike Morris (George Clooney), who is entrenched in a campaign to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He is desperate for support from Senator Thompson, who is insistent that the role of Secretary of State be given to him in exchange for his endorsement.

However, Meyers is lured into a meeting with Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), the campaign manager of Morris’s Democratic rival, Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell). Senator Pullman is equally determined to get Senator Thompson’s support.

This meeting has an unforeseen domino effect, which reveals to Meyers how politics is a much dirtier business than even he realised. He’s already involved in enough dirt as it is, considering he is busy bedding one of the interns, Molly (Evan Rachel Wood). Wood puts in a typically femme fatale performance here.

She succeeds in putting across the view of someone who is flattered by the attentions of the older and sophisticated men around her, and sees herself in the role of seductress, yet when she gets what she wants she isn’t entirely sure what to do with it. 

Gosling and Clooney put in some great performances, but the script is so convoluted that while I was trying to understand what they were saying (there seems to be an assumption that the audience spends their days watching every detail of Presidential candidacy campaigns in forensic detail, and hence is familiar with political jargon), I was inadvertently missing what was actually happening on the screen. 

There are some very intelligently cynical moments in the film; for example, when Meyers suggests to Morris that mandatory conscription to the army should be one of his policies. He makes the point that most older voters will automatically support it, while those who don’t are more than likely those who are too young to vote anyway.

There are also scenes where the question of religion is quite pertinently asked more than once: Is a person’s religion more important than what they actually believe or stand for? Unfortunately, while constantly trying to work out what Senator was being talked about in current discussion, and searching for my political dictionary to interpret what the characters were actually saying, a lot of this was lost.

On the plus side, there are some very interesting camera angles in this film; something to look at while trying to figure out what’s actually going on. I will award it 7 out of a possible 10 Hoffmans.

Christine Brookes