When Oliver Stone announced that his next project would be a biopic of current US President George W. Bush, detractors of the director’s unwieldy political dramas either scoffed or ran for cover. Surely, the combination of a heavy handed filmmaker with a gaffe-prone and unpopular subject could only make for a simplistic film?
It’s to the director’s considerable credit then that W. comes to life as a subtle and complex portrait of a familiar man – from his days as a frat boy at Yale, to his career failures, his mysterious motivations and inevitably his relationship with George Bush Snr – that speculates on why he is the way he is.
Stone takes a few easy satirical shots – it’s clearly hard to resist going over some of Bush’s most notorious White House gaffes and down-home world views. But in the end, what emerges a detailed depiction of the shaping of a personality and a well-mounted critique of the system that enabled him to be elected to the world’s most powerful office. With another terrific performance by Josh Brolin in one of the most challenging screen roles imaginable.