The Ides of March

George Clooney’s new political thriller The Ides of March follows staffer Stephen Meyers on his path from innocence. Meyers is working on the presidential campaign of governor Mike Morris, whom he starts the movie earnestly believing in as the last solution to America’s problems—the real deal president. Yet the film questions several virtues as Morris’s flaws are revealed, dragging down Meyers’s sincerity, so that the last true “savior” figures in politics descend to the masses of corruption.

This film broadcasts disillusionment with the human race as it tarnishes the figures it first asked the audience to love. While the Kingdom acknowledges that humans are corrupt, it also holds that humans are image-bearers of God, and so while everyone contains some shadow, everyone also contains some light. The Ides of March leaves no redeeming qualities or hint of goodness in the nature of man. Through showing the transformation of Meyer and disclosing the scandal of Morris, it is almost as if Clooney is shouting: “See! See! Even those individuals who you think are so angelic fail in the end.” The Ides of March ends at the pit of corruption from which a typical narrative would rise to conclude, paralleling Creation to the Fall, but abandoning the audience there instead of carrying them on to Redemption and Restoration.

The Empire would like you to believe one of two things: either the world isn’t so bad, or it’s terrible, but that’s the way things are, and it’s time for you to play the game. This drama shoots down the first option after initially inviting you to believe in it, but leaves the protagonist Meyer committed to the second view. My reaction to the movie however, is almost a resistance, and a desire to prove this wrong; thereby, The Ides of March promotes the Kingdom by inviting the audience to question the reality of human nature.

Discussion questions:

1) What do you think Clooney’s view of human nature is?

2) What are the parallels and distinctions between Meyer’s apocalypse (epiphany) and the apocalypse we are called to?