HBO claims its upcoming film “Game Change,” which covers the 2008 presidential campaign, isn’t fact challenged and isn’t a hit piece. But what do the few reviewers who have seen it say?
The Hollywood Reporter’s Tim Goodman review must be read to be believed. The emphasis mine:
In the process, interesting strands to the storytelling evolve. First, Palin becomes a sympathetic figure as she’s pulled away from her family and tossed into a situation she isn’t equipped to handle. National ridicule and the explosion of stories about her family begin to take their toll, and Moore effectively mines that vulnerable territory. While she’s doing that, Game Change boldly raises the question about whether Palin is mentally unbalanced. The right will no doubt see that as twisting the knife. It’s not until later, when Palin “goes rogue” and is more engulfed by fame (and increasing power), that you begin to hold her lack of intellectual gravitas against her. And again, Moore’s transformation into the more confident — and dangerous — Palin is spot-on.
Tim Stanley, writing for The Daily Telegraph, explains it simply: “Yes, it’s a hit job.” Stanley writes that “Game Change” “rubs salt into the wound” left open after the infighting among the Republican establishment and the party faithful.
More reviews will trickle in, but until then, it seems obvious that those who have seen the film know it for what it is: an attack on Palin, who the Hollywood types predicted would run against President Barack Obama in 2012.
Though every review has stressed the performances of Moore and Harrelson, this is hate elevated to an art form. And we know why: Palin is a working class white woman, an evangelical Christian, a Republican, a non-Ivy Leaguer, and Hollywood can’t contain its glee attacking her on all these terms.
Goodman writes “[g]reat performances probably won’t help this film bridge the partisan divide,” but when one party rule rules Hollywood when are we ever going to see a movie about the Obamas? The answer is “never.”
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