At the court of King George

George Clooney held centre stage at London Film Festival this week with two films that show his full range of talent

EVERY few years the BFI London Film Festival seems to turn into the George Clooney show. It started when his directorial debut Good Night, and Good Luck closed the festival in 2005, continued a couple of years ago when the festival premiered Fantastic Mr Fox and Up in the Air, and came full circle this week when he arrived in town to promote his latest directorial effort The Ides of March and his starring role in The Descendants, the new film by Sideways director Alexander Payne. The press conferences for both films saw Clooney launch his patented charm offensive (there were only a few cringeworthy moments when a reporter for a European news outlet tried and failed to get him to talk about his relationships), but the films themselves saw him willingly embracing characters that were a lot more flawed and not so reliant on his innate likeability.

The Descendants (4 stars) in particular sees him stretching himself as a somewhat dishevelled 50-year-old lawyer and father of two who is forced to face some uncomfortable truths about his imploding marriage when a speedboat accident puts his wife in a coma.

Though he immediately resolves to become a better husband and a better father, this course of action is quickly complicated by two pieces of news for which he’s wholly unprepared and Payne – a film-maker who thrives when it comes to treading a fine line between comedy and tragedy – builds the film around the way Clooney’s character, Matt, tries to rally his reluctant-to-be-parented kids as he deals with these life-changing pieces of information. Essentially a coming-of-age film in which the person coming of age is a 50-year-old man, Clooney rewards the richness of Payne’s script and his meticulous attention to detail with a tender, funny, low-key performance that ensures the emotional pay-off is well earned.

The Ides of March (3 stars), on the other hand, feeds off Clooney’s own celebrity status a little more by casting him as an idealistic Democratic governor on the campaign trail for the presidential nomination.

As the film’s co-writer and director, Clooney has given himself more of a supporting role this time out, entrusting star duties to the ubiquitous Ryan Gosling. But the fact that his character inevitably turns out to be somewhat less than golden helps sell us on the speed with which Gosling’s idealistic campaign strategist goes from true-believer to ruthless, power-hungry politico in a way that the occasionally cliché-ridden script doesn’t entirely justify.

That said, it’s a classy piece of filmmaking and Clooney, Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti (as rival campaign managers) carry the film even when it errs on the side of obvious awards-bait.

Sticking with American politics, Nick Broomfield’s latest documentary Sarah Palin: You Betcha! also received its British premiere at the festival this week. Though Broomfield has made documentaries about political figures – including Margaret Thatcher – before, the film this most resembles is Kurt and Courtney, his fascinating study of the late Nirvana frontman, his much speculated upon suicide and his marriage to Courtney Love. This is largely because of the elusiveness of his subject and the increasing efforts of Palin’s people to shut down Broomfield’s access after he starts talking to the personal and political enemies who still live in her hometown of Wassila, Alaska.

Before that happens, though, he does get plenty of access to Palin’s mother and father who seem nice as pie as they wax lyrical about their competitive, ambitious, straight-shooting daughter. It’s not long, though, before a different picture starts to emerge of Palin herself as a vindictive, petty, lazy politician who from the start of her political career was more interested in using her position to settle old scores than to improve the lot of the hardworking Americans she has always claimed to serve.

As always, Broomfield’s bumbling style frequently throws up interesting interviews. A local minister who is convinced Palin will bring about a nuclear apocalypse if she ever gets near the White House is particularly scary for how sincere and reasonable he sounds, while those who have helped her in the past frequently talk about “being thrown under the bus” as her career progressed.

But getting to Palin is nigh-on impossible and even Broomfield’s rather sweet attempts to doorstep her at some of the numerous book signings she gives yields little in the way of unguarded insights (beyond supplying the film with its title). Interestingly, this works in the film’s favour, serving to highlight how scarily powerful she really is, particularly as a mouthpiece for billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, who have a vested interest in having someone like her run the country.

Of course, it could be argued that her recent announcement that she won’t be seeking the Republican nomination next year may have stolen some of the film’s thunder, but it remains a valuable reminder of how close she almost got to becoming the leader of the free world.