Capote Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)September 22nd, 2005
CAPOTE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
Sometimes there is a performance so astonishing that you are certain that you've seen the best work of the year even if the year isn't anywhere nearly over with. Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Truman Capote, creates a character that is larger than life. Writer Capote was a fascinating iconoclast, but one suspects the real Capote was never as interesting as Hoffman's rendition of him. The acting is at such an intensely captivating level that it literally takes your breath away. It is an astonishing piece of work absolutely certain to be remembered at Oscar time
CAPOTE is set during the five years that Capote spent researching and writing his most famous and last finished book, "In Cold Blood," about the true life story of the senseless killing of a Kansas farm family of four. Clifton Collins, Jr. and Mark Pellegrino play the killers, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. Capote, and his chief researcher Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who was the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird," put a spell on the local sheriff by weaving stories of the filming of Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and his hobnobbing with the rich and famous actors on the set in Rome. The sheriff is delicately underplayed by Chris Cooper in another of his remarkable performances.
Using his charm on the sheriff and a bribe later to the prison warden, Capote gains amazing and probably unprecedented access whenever he wanted and for last long as he wanted to the killers and to the evidence in the case.
The film's creepy power comes from the bond that Capote, shown as an effete, cosmopolitan narcissist, forms with the murderers. His forms a palpably weird attachment with them, yet, when he gets all of the information he needs, he readily abandons them. Scary movies hold little power over me, but this true life depiction of evil left me cold and shaking. The cold and bleak images of Adam Kimmel's gorgeous cinematography probably added to my discomfort. Although my body was shaken and uncomfortable, my mind knew that this was the best film I've seen (so far, at least) this year.
Director Bennett Miller, whose only other movie was THE CRUISE, the 1998 documentary about wacky New York City tour guide Tim "Speed" Levitch, shows skills that one would never guess from his previous picture. Working with a top notch cast, he gets incredible pieces of acting out of every one of them. Everything about the movie is near perfection, but let me end by noting the impressive and understated work of Kasia Walicka-Maimone's wardrobe design and Francie Paull's make-up. Pay careful attention to both of these usually missed parts of the production and see if you aren't impressed as well.
CAPOTE is the best movie of the year -- okay, at this point, I have to qualify that comment by saying it is the best so far this year, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if CAPOTE ends up actually being the best film of the year.
CAPOTE runs an engrossing 1:54. It is rated R for "some violent images and brief strong language" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 7, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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