I watched Game Change last night. If you want a good review, read Charles Pierce. He nails it. The acting is superb. The script is just okay. John McCain gets the kid-glove treatment. Sarah Palin is torn to shreds but her debate performance is portrayed as a triumph, whereas it was really the most bizarre hour and a half in American political history. The movie explains why. After they gave up on teaching Palin the History of the World (which she didn’t know anything about), they resorted to having her memorize a couple dozen scripted answers. It didn’t matter what she was asked, she answered with the most suitable memorized answer. She wasn’t capable of learning anything, but she knew how to play a role.
If anything, the people responsible for giving us Sarah Palin are treated too sympathetically. And, of course, it falls short of great Greek Tragedy because no one dies and Steve Schmidt doesn’t scratch out his own eyes. Julianne Moore is brilliant and she looks exactly like Palin. Woody Harrelson does a very good job, although his resemblance to Schmidt is less uncanny. Ed Harris plays a well-lubricated John McCain, seen with a glass of whisky or vodka in nearly every scene. This made me wonder if he was not the more dangerous of the two.
Perhaps because McCain has never dissed Sarah to Mark Halperin, he is portrayed as undismayed by and mostly sympathetic about his running-mate’s shortcomings. The truth is probably much harsher.
Since Schmidt was mainly responsible for the two biggest blunders of McCain’s campaign (picking Palin and suspending his campaign during the financial meltdown), he doesn’t come off very well. But McCain was the one who hired him and listened to him. He is ultimately Oedipus Rex here. But you won’t get that from watching the movie.
