Game Change (2012)

GAME CHANGE  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jay Roach
    Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris,
    Peter MacNicol, Jamey Sheridan, Sarah Paulson
How Sarah Palin, the ambitious, outspoken, telegenic and alarmingly ignorant governor of Alaska, became the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, and the political circus that followed in her wake. Julianne Moore virtually disappears into her role as Palin. Put Moore, Tina Fey and the real Sarah Palin side by side and you'd think you were seeing triple. Ed Harris plays John McCain, the man at the top of the ticket, trying to salvage some speck of decency as his running mate goes off the rails and the campaign turns increasingly ugly. Woody Harrelson plays Steve Schmidt, the political guru whose job is to keep Palin's glaring limitations in check and her grandstanding behavior under control till early November. It's tempting in retrospect to view Palin as an aberration, a bad political joke. Based on the slimefest we've witnessed lately, that would be a mistake. If we continue to vote for cretins and idiots, we're bound to elect a few, and we've got to do better than that. If we don't, the joke's on us.