You can bet your bottom dollar that when the movie award season rolls around in any given year, one or more biopics will be positioned in the release chute. They're the favorite of actors since they get to prove their thespian abilities by playing a real person against which their performance can be judged. And the studios love such films since many usually end up with nominations and/or awards for the performers and sometimes the films themselves.
The problem with many such movies, however, is that the writer and/or director seem to feel obligated to cram in as many aspects of the real person's life into only a few hours of onscreen time. The result, which can still be good despite the following, is that the story often feels fractured and episodic as it moves from point A to Z, be it linearly or not.
The lack of that very issue is one of the attractive things about "Capote," a look at one aspect of Truman Capote, the famous writer of works such as "The Grass Harp" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's." His most famous and acclaimed, though, was "In Cold Blood," the non-fiction novel about two killers that's been deemed one of the best literary works of the 20th century by some.
Published in 1966, it dramatized the tale of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, two drifters who murdered the Clutter family in 1959 Kansas after receiving an erroneous tip about a great deal of money being stashed away on their farm. The author's seven year involvement in the story and one of the murderers further cemented his status as a literary giant, but it also proved to be his undoing. Apparently torn by his guilt over reportedly falling for yet manipulating Smith for the purpose of his work, Capote never published again (and died in 1984 of alcohol related issues).
It's a fascinating tale -- both the novel and the story behind it -- and director Bennett Miller has faithfully brought it to the big screen. Following the author from his initial discovery of the story about the murders through his befriending of Smith and completing his work, the film is captivating from start to finish.
Of course, the critical selling point of any biopic is the central performance in recreating the real individual. Anyone can do an impersonation of a famous person, although that usually stems from playing up and/or off one or more defining characteristics with which the general public is already familiar.
For Capote, that would obviously be his high-pitched voice and lofty if effeminate mannerisms. In his take on the famous author and socialite, Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Almost Famous," "State and Main") nails those parts without every turning them into caricaturized elements.
But he also goes an important step further by making the character a real person with strengths and weaknesses that go well beyond a simple if technically perfect impersonation. Despite the physical differences between the two men, Hoffman simply becomes Capote. In a tour de force performance, he goes well beyond just recreating him -- he also allows us inside his head to see the world and this particular event through his eyes. And whether you admire or dislike the character up there on the screen, there's no denying Hoffman has turned him into a complex, engaging and mesmerizing character.
While the show's all his, those in supporting roles are no slouches either. Catherine Keener finally gets a role different from what she normally plays and is terrific in it, even if she's not around that much in the second half.
Clifton Collins Jr. and Mark Pellegrino play the murderers, with the former getting the more fleshed out and significant part. Chris Cooper is as solid as ever playing the local sheriff with a personal interest in how things turn out, while Bruce Greenwood plays Capote's companion who eventually isn't happy with all of the time and energy the writer is investing in his work.
I only have a few complaints about the film. Not being familiar with the real, behind the scenes story, I have no idea if this part is accurate or not, but Truman seems to have too easy and too abundant access to the murderers (despite one scene showing a monetary bribe). Then there's the moment when Capote finally gets what he's really after, the confession of Smith about what really happened that fateful night. Yet, rather than allowing us to imagine the horrific event as told by Smith and reflected in Capote's reaction, Miller opts for the heavily stylized flashback.
While some might not mind that, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the film from a directorial standpoint, and it would have been so much more powerful in a verbal rather than visual recreation. Imagine if we saw a flashback to the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and subsequent shark attacks in "Jaws" rather than simply hearing the tale from Robert Shaw's mouth and seeing it recounted in his eyes. It simply would not have been as effective. And in terms of the overall writing, the screenplay by Dan Futterman (who adapts Gerald Clarke's book) doesn't always manage to capture the brilliance of Capote's verbal or written vocabulary, although there are various moments that do come close.
Nevertheless, he and Miller manage to deliver and work from tightly woven script that allows the performers to seize and then run with the material. With Hoffman delivering the best work of his already solid career, "Capote" starts off with a bang and never lets up. It rates as a 7 out of 10.
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