Director Jay Roach and screenwriter Danny Strong have taken a small slice of the wide-ranging book about the 2008 election by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and made a film that is both, at times, contentious and empathetic and treats its characters with a surprisingly sympathetic touch. Politics is an ugly game and Game Change is about how that ugliness affects everything it touches from the people who set out to do good or with at least some ideals and how that destroys everything decent around it. While there has been controversy surrounding how the film cuts out the ugliness of the Democratic primaries and other salacious details on that side of the election and almost wholly concentrates on the ascent of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the film on its own seems surprisingly fair despite the obvious liberal leanings of the filmmakers.
A Film Log 