W.

Before I write this post, I want to make it totally clear that I am a proudly registered Independent. But when I heard that Oliver Stone was making a movie about the infamous Bush presidency, I questioned his motives. I thought it was a little unfair that he was making a movie about a sitting president, and it was going to be released right before the November 4 election. Obvious politics.

However, my boyfriend got this movie from his Netflix queue (if you haven't signed up, do it! It's worth it)and made me watch it with him. I was pleasantly surprised!

While the movie does portray our 43rd President as a spoiled, rich rebel throughout the movie, I was surprised to see how they portrayed him behind the scenes of the invasion of Iraq/search-for-WMDs-that-were-never-really-there.

The movie is told almost all through flashbacks. During the first half of the movie, you feel like just strangling "Junior", as Bush the 41st called him. He is the typical spoiled rich Ivy Leaguer who thinks he can get out of any predicament because of his father's position in politics (at the time, George Bush Sr. was a Congressman). He lives in the shadows of his brother Jeb, and tries to get his father's respect any way he can. Unfortunately, W turns to alcohol and drugs to achieve this.

The movie shows W constantly trying to please his father. It's really kind of heartbreaking. Even after he was elected Governor of Texas, and even when he was running for President for the first time, everything was to prove to his father that he was good enough. I know the movie is somewhat fictional, but I could understand how difficult it might be to be the son of an elite politician.

While all these flashbacks are occuring, the planning of the Iraq war is taking place. As the movie goes on, "Shock & Awe" ensues, Baghdad is overthrown, and the infamous words "Mission Accomplished" are hung on a banner on a naval warship. After this, as we all know, the war literally blew up in his face. In one particular scene, W asks his cabinet where the WMDs are, where the intelligence was from, and if anyone knew this would happen. The answer is tossed from one cabinet official to another, which can pretty much sum up what happened in Iraq. Nobody was accountable, and nobody informed the President, because they didn't think he would understand. He could never really escape that-- his father didn't think he'd amount to anything valuable, and now his administration was falling apart.

The movie is actually very poignant, and offers a deeper perspective of this man who has been the butt of late night jokes for almost a decade. I was very surprised to see such an interpretation by Stone, who I thought would take the character and run with all the gaffes and stupid moments. However, Stone showed that Bush was simply misunderstood ("misunderestimated" is what the poster said). He suggested that the war was not entirely his doing, but the fault of an entire cabinet and the result of a lack of accountability on all parts.

All in all, I thought Stone's portrayal of our 43rd President was a well-executed one; one that did not set out to further damage a reputation, but to show how a man like George W. Bush became President. Watch it: I think you'll respect him a lot more when you do.

W. Trailer