Thoughts on the HBO Film "Game Change"

I saw the HBO film "Game Change." In a Washington Post article, the authors of  the book and the filmmakers insist the story presented in the film is true,

I have written books and articles on fictionalization in fact-based films. "Game
Change" depicts 2008 Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin as not knowing that the Queen of England is not the head of state or why there is a North Korea anf a South Korea. The movie does not emphasize the effect of the economic crisis on the 2008 presidential election.

"Game Change" does not end with a typical disclaimer that states, "While based on a true story, certain characters and events have been fictionalized..." but instead with "This film is a dramatization based on certain facts. Some of the names have been changed and some of the events and characters have beenfictionalized." The film's disclaimer does not mention "truth" or "true story" but instead emphasizes "dramatization" and limits itself to "certain facts."

The film has as its protagonist Steve Schmidt, who advised Republican nominee Sen. John McCain and later regretted making that recommendation. Schmidt was a source for the book, a technical advisor on the film, nnd is one of those in the Post story insisting the film's story is the truth.

Schmidt's invovement reminds me of a number of other moves,

In the 2001 movie Thirteen Days, the story of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is shown through the eyes of presidential aide Kenneth O’Donnell, played by Kevin Costner. President John F. Kennedy asks his advice constantly. O’Donnell sits in on cabinet meetings, he drives attorney general Robert F. Kennedy to a meeting with a Russian diplomat, and later briefs the president. While O’Donnell was indeed an aide to President Kennedy, he was his appointment secretary and had no involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis. He did, however, have one thing going for him that Secretary of Defense McNamara, Secretary of State Rusk, and other Kennedy cabinet members and aides did not—O’Donnell’s son co-produced the movie, and so his father became the movie’s focus.

Similarly, the screenplay of the 2007 film Talk to Me about Washington, D.C.-radio talk show host Petey Greene was co-written by Michael Genet, the son of Dewey Hughes, who had worked with Greene in the 1960s. The movie has been characterized as a “buddy movie” about Greene and Hughes, even though, according to Greene’s family, Hughes and Greene were not that close, Hughes fired Greene, the two didn’t talk for years before Greene’s death in 1984, and Hughes did not deliver the eulogy at Greene’s funeral as he does in the movie because he did not attend it

Marianne Pearl wrote the book on which the 2007 film A Mighty Heart, about the kidnapping and murder of her husband Daniel Pearl in Iraq. Asra Q. Nomani, Daniel Pearl’s colleague, complained that the Daniel Pearl she knew was nowhere to be found in the movie. The problem with Daniel Pearl and the movie is that Daniel Pearl’s only purpose in it is to disappear.  As a result, his character became a stereotype of a well-intentioned smuck who ignores repeated warnings not to go to the meeting alone. Marianne Pearl is portrayed by the film's major star—Angelina Jolie, and the story focused on her search for him.