Movie review: 'W.'

After nearly eight years in office, George W. Bush is still a mystery. How smart is he? How dumb is he? Does he have regrets about the way his presidency has gone, or is he as impervious as his facade? Does he care? Is he really a nice guy? Is he really a horrible guy? Is he a religious person, or is that just a pose?

Love him or hate him, everyone has his or her own Bush, and so no screen portrayal of the president will satisfy everyone. But it's safe to say that the Bush depicted in Oliver Stone's "W." - and the movie itself - will put off viewers who approve of the president and at least amuse those who consider him a disaster.

"Harding was not a bad man," Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said of another president. "He was just a slob." And that's basically Stone's angle on Bush. The film presents him as a black sheep who drank away his youth, glided on family connections and embroiled the country in a needless, catastrophic war. Stone's viewpoint has its limitations: There's a shrewdness about the real-life Bush that is only hinted at in Josh Brolin's portrayal, and extant videos show that the young Bush was a lot more charming and charismatic than the hyperactive fool presented here.

Then again, if the young Bush were truly as confident as he seemed, why was he drinking heavily until he was 40 years old? Surely, there was something dark underneath the surface, which the movie attempts to bring to light.

The younger Bush's lifelong struggle with his father forms the psychological underpinning of "W." What was it like to be the drunken no-good son of a war hero/successful businessman/congressman and, later, president of the United States? What was it like to be the despised son in a family of high achievers? Brolin, who himself knows what it's like to have a celebrated father, tears into the Oedipal aspect of the role. W.'s pain, shame, embarrassment and resentment are all made real.

The movie is less sure-footed when it comes to W.'s religious conversion. As a psychologically astute director, Stone understands the ways that Bush used his "Higher Father" to ward off and fortify himself against his biological father. But Stone is too secular to get a handle on what it's like for a world leader to sincerely believe he's God's chosen instrument. Stone doesn't convey the charismatic, but dangerously delusional confidence, that such conviction might inspire. As such, "W." remains a secular portrait of a man who saw himself only partly in secular terms.

Still, Stone's Bush is only a first step, and no doubt other Bush movies will fill in more of the picture. In the meantime, Stone gets more than enough to keep his film fascinating from beginning to end. The screenplay, written by Stanley Weiser, follows two tracks, with scenes of the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003 interspersed with scenes from Bush's early life. We watch the young Bush from his college days through his decision to run for president, in 1999, when he tells his pastor that God is calling him.

Along the way, we meet the various people in Bush's life. James Cromwell gives the film's standout performance as George H.W. Bush, playing him as a serious, decent man who is at a loss when it comes to his oldest son - and ultimately ashamed of what W. does on the world stage. Cromwell is the one actor who makes no effort to sound like his real-life counterpart, nor does he look like the elder Bush, except in terms of height and weight. But he conveys his gravity, simplicity and essential decency.

The rest of the actors are immediately recognizable in their roles. Toby Jones is a sly Karl Rove, shorter than the real-life Rove but conveying the same impish self-satisfaction. Elizabeth Banks makes a lovely Laura Bush. Jeffrey Wright is Colin Powell, out of his depth and outnumbered in Cabinet meetings by the war faction, led by Richard Dreyfuss as a formidable Dick Cheney. As Stone's point of view is decidedly anti-war, Don Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn) and Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (Dennis Boutsikaris) hardly come in for friendly treatment. But the one Stone really has it in for is Condoleezza Rice, who gets it worse than anybody.

At least Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are portrayed as people with strong opinions. Rice is presented as a mere fawning appendage, who sits trying to read the president's mind so as to agree with him in advance. Thandie Newton looks as much like Rice as Tina Fey looks like Sarah Palin, and her performance is the funniest and meanest element of the movie. Indeed, mean or not, Newton alone is worth the price of admission.

In the end, "W." makes up in immediacy what it lacks in objectivity. Perhaps years from now, the film may play like an in-joke between a filmmaker and his audience. Yet even then, future audiences will have to appreciate the daring nature of what Stone is attempting: to put the national trauma known as the Bush years into historical and psychological perspective, even as they're still going on.