C a p o t e

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Summary:
Based on the true events of Truman Capote's quest to create a non-fiction novel about two murderers on death row. Mr. Capote himself is a quirky guy with the way he talks and his lifestyle. Eventually, he and one of the convicted murderers become friends, which makes writing the novel that much more difficult of a task.

Review:
The story of Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood on its' own has a lot of potential to create the Oscar bait melodrama that I hate so much. There are so few movies at this time of year which truly impress me. Few Oscar-wannabe dramas succeed in avoiding the sappy and cheap attempts at tugging at the viewers' heartstrings through the use of swelling music on cue, shitty flashbacks and onscreen tears when needed. There are other movies that are just "alright" but worth watching for an actors' performance IN the movie, such as Ray.
What I find most spectacular about Capote is that it managed to have all the good elements of the years' so-called BEST dramas, and also refused to fall back on most of the cliches that piss me off. The formula is there, but this time around it's like testing a fine wine, where the most subtle of ingredients - and a little bit of luck - can create the finest flavor. If Capote isn't the example of what ALL dramas should aspire to become, Hollywood should stop making unforgivingly bad dramas right this very moment.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was Capote through and through. I don't know much about the real life Capote, but I DO know that I didn't see Hoffman, I saw someone else entirely. I never knew that he had the capability of transforming himself so convincingly as he did for his role as Truman. On another possitive note, everyone else also did a great job with their given roles, the weakest link being the slightly underpar development of Harper Lee. There is a little too much reference to Lee being the author of To Kill a Mockingbird and the fact that no one seems to know how influential the novel and motion picture would become. It's not Catherine Keener's fault that they didn't do enough to bring her justice. She did a good job with what she had. Clifton Collins Jr. was fantastic as the low-key and quiet convicted murderer Perry Smith. He was fun to watch and slightly over the top in Rules of Attraction, but once again an actor goes beyond what I thought they were capable of, and he helped me identify with a convicted killer even easier than Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking.
After each scene, I was waiting for the inevitable moment when the story would fall back to the old familiar treading ground of all Oscar fodder flicks, which is the sappy music, cheap flashbacks to kids or to the actors when they spouted important soundbites or key moments earlier in the movie. In the final act, I was bracing myself for the onscreen tears and final speech that will send the message home to the audience by way of placing a grenade in the stomach of the badly beaten dead horse. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when that moment didn't come. Capote isn't a great guy... he lies when needed, aims for the story of the Kansas murders and writing a novel for his own benefit, initially seeing the accused as a means to an end, not particularly as people worth sympathizing for. He has a male lifemate, but the affection is kept to a minimum. We know he's gay, but it's not lingered on for the modern day moviegoers. That's just the way it is. His partner is a good man and is an integral part of Capote's life. When we meet Perry and his brother, they, too are flawed people, and the movie doesn't try to make us hate them or love them; everyone is just a PERSON with their own flaws and agendas.
Just about everything in Capote is low-key. The soundtrack is subtle. I barely noticed it myself. The pacing is deliberate, but never boring. The movie stands on its' own by the excellent screenplay and solid performances.
There's so much about Capote that was done right, that I didn't know how to react when the credits rolled. I walked out of the theater, thinking back on what I had just seen, and was awestruck. It managed to stir the right emotions as well as make me think about how hard it must have been for Capote when writing this book over those six years. The line between being a non-biased reporter to potentially sealing the fate of your friend's capital punishment is a much better route to go for a conflict than being addicted to drugs (or having OCD). This unique and intruiging premise was not the only possitive note to this movie, either. And I'm thankful for that.

GRADE: A

Reviewed 11/11/05