Capote

Before I get to the movie, just thought I'd say how sad it is that another year's festival has now passed us by. Media pundits are always going on, it seems to me, how summer ends after labour day Monday as if we've all been on vacation since the end of June and now we have to get back to the serious stuff. For me the true signpost of summer's demise is seeing my last film of the festival. As I hear the theme music to this year's fest before my last movie comes on, a tear comes to my eye as I realize that I'll wait another year to see so many interesting films in such a short space of time. Yes, I am a fucking wuss.

Which leads me to Capote who despite being fey in the extreme could never be construed as having been a wuss. His acerbic side took care to ensure that his emotional side would never get the better of him. I'm making some rather large suppositions based on a 2 hour biopic but the performance that Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers here most certainly leaves you feeling that for a short time you've seen the man as he really was.

For my money this is a role that Hoffman was born to play. I can't imagine Capote pulling it off with more elan than Hoffman does here. The ridiculous comment by a Now magazine scribe that Hoffman is too statuesque to play the diminutive Capote needs no comment with respect to its irrelevance here.

I checked IMDB and I've now seen Hoffman in 13 films, maybe as many as any other current actor or actress that I can think of, and weak performances are at a bare minimum. This is a guy Oscar has sadly overlooked. Both Hoffman and Jamie Foxx, last year's Oscar winner, are 38 and as I've read from the reviews of "Ray", "Capote" suffers from the same affliction in that this is really a great performance masquerading as a film.

Not that the film is bad by any stretch but the other characters played by the wonderful Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper and Brice Greenwood never get much to sink their teeth in to. It's like the scene in "Aliens" where the queen (pun intended) enters the hive and all the smaller males of the species shrink into the shadows for fear of reprisal.

The film focuses on Capote's final book. A non-fiction account of the gruesome slaying of a Kansas family, the book simultaneously catapults the writer to star status in North America while at the same time derailing his writing career. Much of the film is centred around Capote's complex relationship with one of the two accused, Perry Smith. Capote is fascinated by what motivated this multi-dimensional man to an act of extreme brutality and spends countless hours simply conversing with him in his prison cell.

As the film progresses we see that this is no hagiography. His relationship with Smith reveals much in Capote that is reprehensible. The scenes set in the big city cultural milieu in which Capote most obviously reveled show the side of the man that one cannot help but be attracted to. If you had to come up with a fantasy dinner guest list you could safely start with Capote.

The main flaw in the film for me, other than the peripheral roles played by the aforementioned actors, is that the connection to Perry Smith is never realized. Capote is fascinated by this man. I was less than enthralled. Clifton Collins Jr., who plays Perry Smith, is captivating to watch (his eyes especially) but something is missing in the writing I fear.

Still heartily recommended.