Review: The Ides of March (2011)

* * * 1/2
Director: George Clooney
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, George Clooney, Evan Rachel Wood, Marissa Tomei

"Because how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives that he who lets go of what is done for that which one ought to do sooner learns ruin than his own preservation: because a man who might want to make a show of goodness in all things necessarily comes to ruin among so many who are not good. Because of this it is necessary for a prince, wanting to maintain himself, to learn how to be able to be not good and to use this and not use it according to necessity."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Canadian Film Review: Barney's Version (2010)

* * *
Director: Richard J. Lewis
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman

Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version is the kind of novel that is difficult to adapt becasue it explores such a great span of time and such a wealth of relationships. Inevitably, when a book like this gets adapted, it ends up feeling more like a survey course - you get the whole picture in terms of the facts, but you have to sacrifice the smaller details, the little bits of narrative texture that make a work poignant, resonant and engaging. The film adaptation of Barney's Version doesn't escape this trap, but it manages nevertheless to be a very enjoyable and engaging film.