Film Reviews

Capote

• Rating:
• Director: Bennet Miller.
• Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Chris Cooper.
• Details: US, 114mins, 15s.

In 1959, celebrated author Truman Capote (Hoffman) decides to make the shocking murders of the Clutter family, shot by two burglars in a backwater town in Kansas, his next project - In Cold Blood, his first non-fiction novel. With his researcher and friend Harper Lee (Keener) in tow, Capote visits the town to interview the cop on the case (Cooper) and strikes up a unique friendship with one of the killers, Perry Smith (Collins Jr.) as he waits on Death Row. The painstakingly slow research, culled over six years, drained Capote and forever changed him, and he never finished another novel again. With a spate of biopic films released recently (Ray, Walk The Line), Capote offers something different as it is not a straight birth-to-death tale, but a moment in time, spotlighting the demands made on the writer attempting what was his most ambitious book. Capote wrote 'In Cold Blood' in cold blood, blagging a close friendship with the tortured Smith, who believed Capote's compassion to be genuine, in order to amass a special insight as to the killer's motivations. Director Miller never resorts to cliche; there is no frustrated ripping of papers from the typewriter, nor is there a shot of a wastebasket full with crumpled pages. Instead Miller focuses on an honest portrayal of Capote, who repeatedly lies through his teeth to his supposed friend and source, while never softening the writer's edges; Capote resolutely sticks to his Machiavellian intentions throughout. Although his film is a slow-paced, sombre affair, reflected in the stark, bleached-out colours of the Kansas landscape, rarely does a scene last longer than two minutes as Miller quickly sets up and moves on. The biggest contribution, however, comes from Hoffman. In only his second starring role, the actor cements his leading man status and, with Truman Capote, proves that he is not only the best character actor working in Hollywood today, but the purest actor of his generation. Never afraid to play unsympathetic characters or anti-heroes, his Capote is on the money in every single shot, downplaying a role while stealing every scene.

Review by Gavin Burke