Guy has already covered George Clooney’s “The Ides of March” for us out of Venice. It’s too bad I couldn’t get into any pre-Toronto screenings (due to not attending the festival), since I was anticipating liking it more than Guy and it could have been nice counter-balance. But then again, maybe not.
I’ve been reading a lot of reviews and Tweets out of Toronto screenings yesterday from the less-than-enthused. “There isn’t anything shockingly new in this political thriller,” Kyle Smith of the New York Post asserted. “[I]t was pretty much all in ‘Primary Colors’ 15 years ago.” His colleague, Lou Lumenick, Tweeted something similar (while nevertheless praising the cast).
Similarly, eFilmCritic’s Erik Childress Tweeted that the film “is tremendously disappointing. No more than a watered down version of ‘Primary Colors.’” It’s beginning to sound like the film is going to be saddled by comparisons to that 1998 Mike Nichols effort (which was to Bill Clinton what “The Ides of March” is to Howard Dean). That film, by the way, only wound up with nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Kathy Bates) and Best Adapted Screenplay.