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Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice

Brolin—an actor who has catapulted to star status in the last year (thanks to a brilliant turn in the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men)—perfectly captures Bush's awkward physical and verbal presences, but also his endearingly accessible (and privately complicated) personality. Particularly in his early romantic interactions with Laura Bush (the impressive Elizabeth Banks), we can see why "Geo" has charmed so many people throughout his private and public history.

Though Brolin is the star of the show, the actors who fill out the impressive ensemble cast are also extremely fun to watch. James Cromwell as the elder George Bush—W's dad—is particularly effective, offering the contrast and foil to Dubya and the focal point of much of the drama that unfolds. Richard Dreyfus aptly portrays the film's most villainous character—Dick Cheney—as the hawkish puppetmaster of the whole Iraq scheme, in contrast with Jeffrey Wright's Colin Powell, who is portrayed as the skeptical voice of reason who nevertheless does not break ranks in the march to war.

Some of the other supporting actors are less convincing, particularly Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. Her portrayal of the Secretary of State is 100 percent over the top parody, with little in the way of humane empathy. Toby Jones as Karl Rove is also a tad on the caricature side of things. "The Architect" is portrayed here as a surreptitious, Blackberry-dependent, behind-the-curtain wizard with no conscience but an unstoppable political will. Who knows, though. Maybe that's accurate.

Ellen Burstyn and James Cromwell as Barbara and George H.W. Bush

At the end of the day, the impressive supporting players are only just footnotes in the W. story. For good or ill, the man at the center is what this saga is all about.

The film opens and closes with Bush standing alone in an empty baseball stadium, perhaps imagining that his life had taken a different path (as it is, he came close: he once owned the Texas Rangers). These scenes demonstrate the film's overarching thematic question: what would it have been like—for Bush, and for the world—if he had never become president? His ascent to becoming the leader of the free world is consistently portrayed in the film as being largely out of his hands, a foregone conclusion helped along by family money, pedigree, and connections. "You're a Bush," H.W. ("Poppy") reminds his son early in the film. And like it or not, that means president.

Though W is certainly flawed and overly simplistic, it also feels strangely authentic. Whether it's an emotional scene of the whole Bush family watching the televised election returns in 1992 (when Clinton upset the elder Bush's bid for a second term), or an intimate moment in the White House when Laura reassures her prematurely-wrinkled husband that "someday the war will be over, and we can have our lives back," there is a surprising amount of tenderness in the film.

Loathed, reviled, and resented as they are, the Bushes are real people, with all the hang-ups and baggage and neuroses that anyone has. Stone's incendiary realization was that W. would be most provocative, most interesting, and ultimately—for a nation that needs to forgive and move on—most helpful, only if it sought to truly understand its subject. In a partisan election season where any and all personal faults are turned into salacious attack ads, it's reassuring to see that Oliver Stone, typically the most salacious of them all, is willing to exercise some restraint.

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