Director: Bennett
Miller | Starring:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener,
Chris Cooper
Released: 2005
| Runtime: 114m
| Rating (out of 5):
**½ |
|
You whiny biatch! But
seriously, why do we need yet another biopic? I'm generally a huge
hater when it comes to these feel good portrayals of historical or
peculiar figures. The trend lately is to not completely sugarcoat
the person's faults, but still create the nice arc that allows our
guy to be saved and/or redeemed in the end. And because of this it
often comes out more like the Huey Lewis Story instead of
the Brilliant Dude who Wrote a Good Book or Invented Something,
but on the Side Liked to Molest Children and Pick Up Male Prostitutes
for Risky Anonymous Sex. Yeah, those details don't often come
through unless it's more of a cautionary tale than biopic. Otherwise
they slap the ''inspired by a true story'' label on it and all bets
are off when it comes to the seedy side of the film's subject. They
certainly don't pull many punches in this one, though. Capote comes
off as a completely self-absorbed, egomaniacal manipulator. The man
is totally unlikable, and it makes you wonder why Harper Lee, author
of one of the most beautiful and sensitive books of all time, would
want to hang out with a jerkoff like him. Listening to Phillip Seymour
Hoffman affect Capote's bizarre high-pitched drawl was like being
bombarded with the sound of fifty hamsters simultaneously running
on fifty squeaky wheels. It makes you kind of despise the guy even
more because it sounds like such a put-on. Maybe I wasn't supposed
to have such a visceral reaction to Capote, but he sent my cringe
sensors on edge. I knew very little about his life before the film-despite
reading In Cold Blood several years ago-and honestly don't
know that much even now. Why did he act like such a selfish prick?
Why does everyone treat him with such deference while he treated them
like complete douchebags? Maybe there was just some uncontrollable
urge to hang out with a famous homosexual-some sort of early hipster
onset that masochists flocked to. I just could have used some context
for why he was such a mess of a man. I mean I'm sure growing up in
the South with that horrible, effeminate voice was probably traumatic,
but is it enough to make him a drunk shithead who wrote one book and
disappeared into oblivion? [DVD]
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