The Ides of March is a decent film, but I doubt I would ever feel the desire to experience it again. The story is very linear and it’s all right there on the surface – no character development, no story depth, no subplots, no subtext. The film is basically a two-hour version of the (very good) preview. But that does not mean it’s not worth seeing.

The real stars of The Ides of March are Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, especially Paul Giamatti. They both give really wonderful, understated performances that glue the simplistic story together and create a partial illusion of texture and depth. They also, through their warmth and naturalness provide a decent counterbalance to Ryan Gosling’s robotic acting.

Speaking of which, I think the industry has decided that Ryan Gosling is the next young Al Pacino. In a way it’s true, because Al Pacino is and always has been (if you are honest about it) pretty frigging robotic and predictable. Gosling looks great, but that’s about it. His Tim Duncan “big eyes” expression is probably the most pathetic piece of acting I’ve seen from a big-name lead in quite a while. Gosling has one gear, yet he is getting roles that are all over the emotional map. Why does everyone think this guy is so great? Frankly, Ryan Reynolds would have been much better in this role.

The critics are complaining that they should have written more dialog (sounds like they’ve been reading Irreviews, doesn’t it – since when do they give a flying fuck if people talk to each other in movies?) but the fact is that the dialog is actually fairly decent, meaning I’ve heard a lot worse. There are at least three pretty well-written and fairly extended scenes involving Gosling and one of Hoffman, Clooney, or Giamatti. And the more incidental dialog was decent enough as well. The actual problems with the film are Gosling, the horrible music, the very uneven pacing, and as already stated the story itself just is not that interesting.

The Ides of March is a perfectly fine little Fall diversion, nothing more.