Review of Trumbo (2007) by Jeffrey M — 21 May 2016

At times a heartfelt biopic and at other times a breezy and light telling of events, Trumbo is a mixed film. Taking place during Hollywood's reviled "black list" period, during which McCarthyism was king. Numerous Hollywood writers, actor, and directors become embroiled when their supposed affiliations to Communism-either real or imagined-became known.

By all accounts Dalton Trumbo had a flamboyant and eccentric personality, and Bryan Cranston did an excellent job showing great range in his performance. The rest of the cast proves capable and the film is filled with some humorous moments as well as truly human ones. It's never as impacting or dramatic as it wants to be, however, and I was troubled with the film's overall treatment of the subject. Instead of a nuanced portray, the film is a heavily slanted apologist film which offers no context, and instead only superficially acknowledges the very real communist infiltration of Hollywood. McCarthy attacks aside, the extreme leftist ideologues and infiltration were far from imagined, and just as troubling as fascist sympathies the film imagines.

A mixed bag.