Review of Mank (2020) by Manicure — 18 Dec 2020
Definitely more entertaining than I expected. Sure it’s a lot of dialogues to handle, but the pacing is relatively tight, and the performances are mostly convincing (Charles Dance in particular). The care they put into the sound and cinematography to reconstruct the atmosphere of the time is more than remarkable.
The film is presented as a docudrama, but Jack Fincher’s original script is so outdated that many plot points have been already debunked by recent studies, including the infamous allegations that Orson Welles was not involved in the writing of “Citizen Kane”.
However, if we think of this film as Mankiewicz’s own perspective of the events, the truth might not matter at all. The real problem the script takes for granted that we are all familiar with the insiders of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the political climate of the time.
The dialogues are packed with countless historical references, but we are hardly given context. The main events are pretty straightforward, but you will definitely need more than one Wikipedia research to enjoy the dialogues fully.
This review of Mank (2020) was written by Manicure on 18 Dec 2020.
Mank has generally received positive reviews.
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