The Ides of March is a 2011 movie with George Clooney as Mike Morris, Democratic presidential candidate, and Ryan Gosling as Stephen Meyers, Morris' junior campaign manager.

Meyers is painted as a talented but idealistic who naively view politics as something noble but fails to realise what a cut-throat environment it actually is.

The movie doesn't have a happy ending, it has a sour ending.

Gosling's character makes two mistakes, one of which is exploited by his character and turned into an advantage in a very cynical way.

First, he sleeps with an intern who also slept with Morris, which leads him to finding out about a dark secret in Morris' past that'll be used against him.

Second, he accepts the invite for a preliminary, off-the-record, informal chat which essentially amounts to a job interview to jump ship and join the other candidate's roster.

He ultimately rejects the job, but ends losing his position as well.

As it turns out, the campaign manager for the other candidate, portrayed by Paul Giamatti, played naive Meyers like a violin.

His thinking was, if Meyers accepts, I've got the best campaign manager off my adversary's team and on my team.

If he refuses, I'm going to leak the meeting, which means he'll lose his job anyway.

Angry and desperate, Meyers tries to blackmail Morris with the information about his dark secret (Morris slept with the intern, got her pregnant, told her to get an abortion and keep quiet, and she ultimately killed herself over this), so Morris caves in, promotes Meyers.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that Meyers joined politics as a naive and idealistic and well-meaning guy, but he's now become just as ruthless and cynical as everyone else.

The writing is great, the acting is equally great. You should watch it if you haven't.