Sarah Palin has dismissed "Game Change" as unimportant, but a top aide says the HBO film about her 2008 vice-presidential bid was "true enough to make me squirm."

Nicolle Wallace, a senior advisor to the campaign, was assigned to work with Palin after she was chosen as John McCain's running mate and later wrote a novel with a mentally-ill character inspired by the former Alaska governor.

"This is a movie about the vast gray area where 99 percent of our politics actually takes place,” Wallace told "This Week" on Sunday. “You’re just feeling your way though a gray area and doing your best and that campaign was one of those instances for me."

Wallace has previously butted heads with Palin and once described her as bitter, cynical and aggressive.

"I believe that if she were on the cusp of becoming the nominee for the Republican party a whole lot of people... would talk about some of her more troubling deficiencies," she told MSNBC in 2010. "Her incredible cynicism, her bitterness, her aggressive attempts to claw anyone that points out an area for her to work on, I think these things will continue to reveal herself and the people that love her will continue to love her, but the people who are not so sure about her will, I think, formulate harder opinions and more clarity about her."

John McCain also spoke out about the movie on Sunday.

"Of course I'm not going to watch it," he said Fox News Sunday. "Why there continues to be such an assault on a fine and decent person, Sarah Palin ... They continue to disparage and attack her person. I admire and respect her, I'm proud of our campaign and I'm humbled by the fact that I was able to give her [the Republican vice-presidential nomination]."

The ReelzChannel television network says it scheduled a pro-Sarah Palin documentary on the same weekend as HBO's "Game Change" debut strictly for business considerations, not political ones.

"The Undefeated," a Palin documentary by conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon, will have its television premiere on Sunday. It will come 23 hours after HBO opens "Game Change," based on the 2008 campaign book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, and starring Julianne Moore as Palin.

Stan Hubbard, ReelzChannel CEO, said he licensed "The Undefeated" for the same reason that his network aired "The Kennedys" miniseries last spring after it was dropped by the History channel – to draw attention to a nearly 6-year-old network with a low public profile. ReelzChannel is in 62 million homes, a little more than half the country.

"For a young network, public relations is important to us, which is why we hunt for opportunistic things," Hubbard said.

Hubbard said he found the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate a fascinating figure, but he wasn't trying to lionize her.

"If HBO wanted to swap movies this weekend, I'd do that in a second," he said.

Palin supporters have attacked "Game Change," although it's unclear whether any of them has seen it in advance. "The Undefeated" maker Bannon called it a "fictionalized hit-piece" and has praised ReelzChannel's "courageous" decision to air his movie.

"Game Change," co-starring Woody Harrelson and Ed Harris, actually strives for a balanced portrait, showing Palin overwhelmed at times after being thrust onto the presidential ticket and lashing out at some McCain aides but connecting with audiences and performing on big stages better than many critics and supporters expected.

"The Undefeated" focuses first on Palin's life as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, as that state's governor and on the 1998 campaign.