By this point, you most likely know where you stand on Karl Rove. You probably aren’t really looking to expand your Karl Rove horizons or interested in hearing any new perspectives on Karl Rove. But Karl Rove, like him or not, is thick with potential to be the next great film hero/villain. Skeptical?
Of course you are—but hold onto your hats. Director Richard Linklater is developing a film called College Republicans, about a young Rove rising to the height of his campus political spectrum via the help of Lee Atwater. And playing Karl Rove will be the supreme Paul Dano.
The supremity of Paul Dano is also something of contestation. His performance in Little Miss Sunshine was immaculate. In the otherwise phenomenal There Will Be Blood, he seemed a bit out of step. But Dano’s interest in the art of cinema is indubitably admirable. The actor, in addition to Linklater’s College Republicans, will be exploring science fiction (Looper), romance (He Loves Me) and shock-value titles (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) over the course of the next year.
Linklater himself is quite the triumph. This is a guy who mastered the surreal (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly), the comic-of-age story, the romantic (Before Sunverb movies), and, notably, movies about slackers (The School of Rock, Dazed and Confused, and…there’s one I’m forgetting). The ambition of both the helmer and the star of this politically-charged tome bleeds promise. Let us look forward to a new take on the Rove.
Source: Indiewire
