Review of Capote (2005) by Beaum — 15 Dec 2005

I may be the only person to feel this way about this film, but I'm going to flat out say it. This is the most overrated film this year. There are moments of power, most definetely, but the film had moments of unevenness that I could not believe.

There is one scene, in particular, when Hoffman's Capote is approaching Perry Smith's cell, and we as the audience are tense. We're almost expecting a semi-Hannibal Lecter moment to occur, and be truly introduced to this character.

Yet Miller decides to interrupt this with a flashback to an object that Capote obtains for Smith, and it not only kills the scene, but it is a horrible way for us to be introduced to Collin's character.

In addition, I did not feel any connection to Collins Jr's performance whatsoever. It's a mediocre job at best, and to be honest, I felt no sympathy for the man. No understanding of him. The film should encapture that point or that moment where he makes sense, but it never does.

Thus, the entire script as a whole falters. It may be only me, but Hoffman, who I dearly loved in Almost Famous and Magnolia, is good here. Not great, not suberb, not the second coming of screen acting, but just good.

It's not on the part of the actor, I believe, becuase I've seen what this man can do (and the fact that he manages to create any kind of real character here is amazing to me) but on the whole, I dislike Capote.

In fact, I loathed him. Hoffman's reach to find the character is slammed down my Futterman's failure to find defining moments for characters. In this, Capote is an obnoxious snob with almost no admirable traits.

He's conceited, rude, arrogant, and has an air about him that makes you want to slap him the first time you meet him. To think that so many people, including a death row inmate, would be inclined to share moments and instances with this walking flamboyant stereotype is beyond me.

It's always been in my opinion that when you watch a film, and you find no traits in a character that you can connect with, then there's no real point to the film. Why root for the main character, when we can't connect with him? This is my main frustration for a majority of well-loved films as of late, including Napoleon Dynamite and Drumline.

When watching both films, I felt nothing for the main characters. Nick Cannon deserved to get run over in the first half hour not for his "rebelliousness", but rather for his lack of decency when talking to anyone.

He had a sense of arrogance, not unlike Capote, who felt that he was better and could do anything better than anyone he meets. Napoleon Dynamite, for me, was not as offensive, but rather just unnecessary.

I felt more pity for him than anything else, and that's not what you should think of your main character. In this, we're to believe Capote and his lover are in a relationship, yet I see no evidence of this.

No love is represented in either's eyes, no hint of romance. These two looked more like distant roommates than anything else. It may seem that I'm going rather harsh on this film, and you know what? I am.

It has its admirable qualities, (namely the brilliance of Catherine Keener, who can do no wrong in ANY film she's in, and Chris Cooper, who manages to establish a living, breathing character with only a few scenes) but my frustration with it is that it is being proclaimed as one of the best films of the year, when in fact it is one of the more uneven ones I've seen.

Hoffman, for me, will have a capper to the extraordinary career he is having so far, but this is not it. This is his effort to establish a consistent plausible character when the script and the direction does not provide one, and for his partial achievement (where almost everyone else would fail) he should be applauded.

Miller and Futterman on the otherhand, should not. I'm only hard on them because there are moments here that show that the both of them have the possiblity to make something great one day... but this is merely their test run.

For me, the film does not work, but hopefully they'll view their missteps and acheive greatness with their next films. More power to you men, but this is not one of them in my opinion. Regardless, even if I did happen to miss the essence of the film that is getting you applause, congratulations on your success.

At the very least, it's good to see men with partial ideas than ones with none at all.