Review of Trumbo (2015) by David P — 08 Dec 2015

Boy did the new film "Trumbo", based on true life, blacklisted, Hollywood screenwriter "Dalton Trumbo" (Bryan Cranston) really throw me a curve ball. The previews show a fun, engaging, and very quick witted Trumbo fighting the fight of being blacklisted post WWII with a very eye catching cast (Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, John Goodman, Elle Fanning, Louis C.K. etc).

Then the previews, trailers and endless radio ads kept hyping this movie seemingly forever and definitely lost my excitement to see this overhyped film. So who knewwhere this film would go for me...so let me tell you.

First, the quality of print was very crisp and somehow that added to the film. I don't usually talk let this but Diane Lane has been ridiculously stunning for 20+ years and and evenso here as a 50's housewife - hubba, hubba!

This film was based on a true story. I sure don't remember learning much about McCarthy/ post wwII communist hearings/blacklist growing up. Maybe, it was a too new an event or the true history hadn't been written.

I must saw I was shocked to learn that the Hollywood Blacklist which began in 1947 and wasn't really ended for Trumbo till 1960 when he was able to get screen credit again. That utterly shocked me that this horrid labeling went on for so long.

So the last 3 quarters of this film Trumbo is a very serious person still writing but carefully and seriously navigating the authorities working clandestinely and never under his own name. This was a serious film and an important one.

No doubt, I missed the fun, quick witted, sharp, clever Trumbo in the 1st quarter of the film. It was there in the rest of the film and only as part of the harsher reality he, his family and other similar writers with a different school of thought had to deal with.