It is so hard to make a movie & I’m not sure if we needed this one. I’m not saying that it wasn’t good. The acting was amazing, but it felt more like master impressionists & that everyone was doing a passion play–reenacting well known events–as opposed to a movie that brought something new & transcended the subject matter. It felt like Stone wanted to make two movies: to reveal the absurdity of politics when they affect the world stage and a movie about a man trying to find acceptance from his father. In the end, the latter won & that conflict becomes the real motivation for the prior. So once again, W. becomes the every man & is ultimately sympathetic–striving to find his place in this world, trying to succeed in spite of his family’s lowered expectations & obvious limitations, not simply becoming a mouthpiece for those who surround him, but asserting his voice & views and ultimately creating his own family & friends who accept & love him. W is a middling end to Stone’s presidential trilogy: not a whirlwind, conspiracy filled epic like JFK or a snoozefest like Nixon (I literally fell asleep in the theaters when I saw it with mom!), but a well executed film about a well worn topic. Oliver, do we have daddy issues? I really think that Oliver Stone was probably making an autobiographical film. Stone as W. Kind of sad.