Expectations management’ is a crucial tool of modern politics: what matters is not how objectively effective or ineffective a person is, but whether they can exceed the standard people (or, more importantly, the media) expect of them.
My expectations of what to expect from The Ides of March had been raised pretty high – I mean, George Clooney and US politics: what could possibly go wrong…?
Well, quite a lot actually. I can’t, of course, say much more than that the film didn’t match my expectations (by a rather long way).
But I found the film very disappointing. The plot was weak, the drama was, well, non-existent and the characters (particularly those played by Ryan Gosling and, in particular, George Clooney – ie the main ones) were utterly unconvincing.
But do you know what my first thought was? It was that the film was not a patch on The West Wing.
It’s inevitable that we West Wing fans are going to judge the film relative to what is one of the finest political dramas ever made, and because of that it was always in the back of my mind that the film wouldn’t be up to the challenge. But I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so wide of the mark.
All of which, incidentally, shows the difference between expectations management in film-making and politics: high expectations help film companies (after all, I still bought the ticket, whatever my opinion of the film now) but high expectations are terrible for politicians (ask Barack Obama).
In short, West Wing fans should prepare to be disappointed. And if you’ve not seen The West Wing, pick up the box set on your way home from seeing The Ides of March and look forward to political drama with characters worth investing in, interesting plots and plenty of drama.
P.S. The film had one redeeming feature: the rather cool poster advertising it:
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