This movie directed by George Clooney is brutality a downer as none of the characters are likable and leaves the audience with a bad taste in their mouth about the American political system. This film gives an appropriate nod to intrigue and betrayal by using a William Shakespeare's quote from Julius Ceasar as its title. Et tu, Brute. The ides of March generally refers to March 15, the day that Julius Caesar was thought to have been betrayed and killed by his friends. The movie titled also hints at half division, as the poster for the movie displays half of the politicians' face and half of campaign manager. Ides is Latin for that. The film is an adaptation of Beau Willimon's 2008 play Farragut North. The original play was inspired by the Democratic Chairman Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, but the film a lot of similarity to George W. Bush, Bill Clintons, Lyndon B. Johnson and other presidential campaigns added to the play. Even the posters in the film taken inspiration from the Barack Obama posters. Set in the world of the American Democratic Party primaries in Ohio where candidates contest the party nomination to become the Presidential candidate. The movie is about the junior campaign manager Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) that work for Gov. Mike Morris's of Pennsylvania (George Clooney) campaign. The campaign is trying to attempt to secure the endorsement of North Carolina Democratic Senator Franklin Thompson (Jeffery Wright), who controls 356 convention delegates, enough to clinch the nomination for either candidate. Meyers sees Mike Morris as the right man for the job, but when Stephen uncovered a scandal that would rock, Mike Morris's chances to become president; he looks for a chance to betrayal his boss, senior campaign manager Paul Zara (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) for the gamble of working with Morris's opponent, Senator Ted Pullman of Arkansas (Michael Mantell) and his campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti). The movie is full of mind games, cheating, and double crossing that you can't help wondering where is the integrity and honestly in American politics anymore. It shows politics to be a messy and brutal game. I knew the movie would be like this, so it didn't bug me as much as other people's opinion. One thing, I didn't like about this film is that the scandals seem forced and rush. It comes out of nowhere. Without spoiling it: the scandals are really dumb and overused in political films anyways. Plus, most of the problems, Meyers dealt with is in my opinion, is his foolish fault. How on earth, does Meyers doesn't see that coming!?! The movie like to paint that Stephen got the raw deal out of it, but I have to say, nobody in this film are angels. Even the female characters of Intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood) & New York Times reporter Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) seem annoying and power hungry. The movie was well acted, but nobody really stood out. All of them, pretty much show the same acting characteristics that they put into other films. George Clooney sounds like he is playing George Clooney. Ryan Gosling is just Ryan Gosling. Paul Giamatti is just Paul, and Phillip is just Phillip. The writing is pretty good, but it does differs from the stage play in one thing: Mike Morris was never in the play. The movie did had a lot of political lingos that can confused the audience on what's going on. I don't see the movie being for everybody. It takes a lot of understanding of the US presidential primary system to get what is happening. I did laugh, in the stupidity of in what the paranoia details. It was bit odd for Tom Duffy to take offense on the media saying he order Buffalo Wings during his meeting. He seems angry at that, then anything else. The film was well shot, particularly in its way it use shadows, darkness and shafts of light amplify the themes of honor and deceit. I like how the film gave the audience, a little room for a non-dialogue scene in the van scene. The movie had way too much talking, and little action to go with it. There was one badly done scene that I have to complain. One scene that stood curiously out of place was with a young girl from a high school Democrat Society arguing that gender distinction was the same as racial discrimination. It never truly finish what she was trying to say or the answer to that question. The film quickly moves to the next scene. I felt like that if you going to bring an issue in the film, at less, finish it before moving on. If not, just cut the whole scene out. The score by Alexandre Desplat was dark-hued and work with the themes. The movie ending is pretty good, and its serves as an open to interpretation as if you don't know what Stephen's next actions will do. Overall: It's a good morality tale, but highly cynical that can be hard to chew. It really does kill optimism in believing in any government.