Capote - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Capote': A mesmerizing dissection of the writer's artistic downfall

By STEVE MURRAY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

At a tony New York cocktail party, Southern-bred writer Truman Capote tells his friends, "I am honest about what I write about."

Well, maybe he is about what he writes, but he's not exactly honest about how he goes about it, as we see in "Capote."

Sony Pictures Classics

'Capote'

A-

The verdict: Terrific biopic about ruthless literary ambition, and an even better lead performance.

Director: Bennett Miller
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Clifton Collins Jr., Bruce Greenwood
Run time: 98 minutes
Release date: Sept. 30, 2005
Rating: R for some violent images and brief strong language.
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Based on Gerald Clarke's biography, smartly adapted by actor-turned-screenwriter Dan Futterman, the film is a dissection of Capote's ruthless, cunning ambition as he pursues a great literary success that will, ironically, bring with it utter moral failure and the end of his creative gifts.

It's a mesmerizing showcase for Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role, stepping front-and-center from a string of expert supporting performances: rock 'n' roll journalist Lester Bangs in "Almost Famous," the arrogant rich boy Freddie in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," the phone-sex sad sack of "Happiness." With "Capote," Hoffman becomes a virtual lock for a best actor Oscar nomination.

It's November 1959 when Truman reads a news item about the murdered Kansas Clutter family — mother, father and teenage son and daughter. Envisioning the crime as a jumping-off point for a "nonfiction novel" about the collision between two worlds — the God-fearing and the lawless — that live side by side in America, he convinces his New Yorker editor, William Shawn (Bob Balaban), to send him to the heartland. He brings along his childhood friend, soon-to-be-published novelist Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), as his "personal bodyguard."

Truman, this runt of the belle-lettres litter, arrives in a lonesome prairie landscape that looks like it was flattened by God's own rolling pin. Standing little more than 5 feet, he still can't help looming out of the smalltown surroundings like the exotic he is. When he catches the cops gawking at him, he says, "Bergdorf's" — assuming they're admiring his scarf.

But his alien-butterfly charisma, combined with Nelle's polite Southern grit, slowly opens local doors. Folks start talking to them about the Clutters — including Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent increasingly frustrated at not being able to find the family's killer.

Actually, there are two of them: drifting grifters Richard Hickock (Mark Pelligrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), a fellow almost as small as Truman, and with a childhood as tumultuous as the writer's own.

When the killers are arrested and sentenced to death row, the movie gets to its dark core. We've already seen Truman charm and manipulate others into telling him what he wants, whether by feigning empathy, or dazzling them with tales of his previous adventures as a novelist and screenwriter — like hanging out with Humphrey Bogart on the set of "Beat the Devil."

He goes further with Smith, convincing the convict he's a true friend, that he plans to use his book-in-progress as evidence for the defense in the prisoners' legal appeal. Of course, he doesn't tell Perry that he's already given the book the less-than-sympathetic title "In Cold Blood."

Truman and Smith engage in a real-life quid pro quo. But unlike "The Silence of the Lambs," here the upstanding citizen on the far side of the prison bars may be, in his way, more sinister and morally corrupt than the killer he's interrogating. Even if he does look like he never passed puberty or shed his baby fat and, when he speaks, sounds like a kitten gargling on vanilla custard.

Directed with scalpel-like precision by Bennett Miller (in his feature debut), "Capote" isn't perfect. The repeat visits to jail are probably meant to give us a sense of Truman's frustration with the tight-lipped killers, but they cause the movie's second half to sag.

Luckily, the cast is so strong you hardly mind: the always-fine Cooper; Bruce Greenwood as Capote's longtime lover. Jack Dunphy; Collins; and, of course, Keener. Her Lee, author of the ethically sturdy "To Kill a Mockingbird," serves as the movie's conscience. We see her disappointment with her old friend deepen as he plunges into his Faustian bargain.

But, really, this is the Truman show — or, rather, Hoffman's. He makes us laugh out loud one moment, squirm the next as we watch the author do whatever it takes (lie, cry and sometimes both) to manipulate the prisoners into helping him finish his masterpiece. You realize Truman has lied so much, he partly believes his own falsehoods.

Hoffman goes beyond impersonation to something close to possession. He replaces our latter-year memories of Capote — a bloated, gossipy talk-show staple — with the image of his younger, fiercer self: a figure of great talent, soon to be both a tragic victim and the engineer of his own downfall.