Cert 15 113mins Stars 3

Three weeks are a short time in politics in this thoughtful and articulate drama about the sex scandal that scuppered the 1988 US presidential campaign of Gary Hart.

That’s how long it took for the mostly forgotten Hart to go from front runner to also ran  after the media made allegations of an affair with model, Donna Rice.

In a role which takes Hugh Jackman a long way from saving the world as the superhero, Wolverine, the Aussie actor is impressively impassioned as the seemingly naive and self regarding senator from Colorado, whose hair alone is considered to be worth several points in the opinion polls.

A typically intelligent script from director Jason Reitman debates the costs of an increasingly hostile media to the political landscape.

And it questions if Hart’s tragic flaw was in failing to understand the world had changed since the days of JFK, when politicians could philander in private and not have their public careers affected.