Movie Review: Capote
Wow, what an incredible performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman! He not only plays Truman Capote, he totally inhabits him - it's like he's channeling the author.
This is the back-story to Capote's classic work, In Cold Blood. Blood was what Capote called a "nonfiction novel" - it's the true story of the brutal murder of a family in Kansas, by two drifters. Capote - hot off his success with Breakfast at Tiffany's - flew to Kansas and followed the detectives as they solved the crime, then kept up with the case until the execution of the murderers. Capote wormed his way into the life of one of the killers, Perry Smith - ingratiating himself to get the killer's story. Along the way, Capote developed one weird relationship with Smith, coming to think of him as a friend. As the character says, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. One day, I went out the front door and he went out the back." In the end, when Smith was executed, Capote was devastated - so shattered that he never wrote another book.
The supporting cast is superb. The ever-reliable, always wonderful Chris Cooper is the head KBI agent; Catherine Keener is awesome as Capote's childhood friend and confidante, Harper Lee. An actor named Clifton Collins Jr. plays Smith - another wow.
But it's Hoffman who just blows you away. I would imagine that younger viewers - younger than me! - would think Hoffman is over the top, that such a person could never exist. WRONG! He is spot-on - every mannerism of body and voice is exactly like Truman's.
What an incredible race for the Best Actor Oscar!
This is the back-story to Capote's classic work, In Cold Blood. Blood was what Capote called a "nonfiction novel" - it's the true story of the brutal murder of a family in Kansas, by two drifters. Capote - hot off his success with Breakfast at Tiffany's - flew to Kansas and followed the detectives as they solved the crime, then kept up with the case until the execution of the murderers. Capote wormed his way into the life of one of the killers, Perry Smith - ingratiating himself to get the killer's story. Along the way, Capote developed one weird relationship with Smith, coming to think of him as a friend. As the character says, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. One day, I went out the front door and he went out the back." In the end, when Smith was executed, Capote was devastated - so shattered that he never wrote another book.
The supporting cast is superb. The ever-reliable, always wonderful Chris Cooper is the head KBI agent; Catherine Keener is awesome as Capote's childhood friend and confidante, Harper Lee. An actor named Clifton Collins Jr. plays Smith - another wow.
But it's Hoffman who just blows you away. I would imagine that younger viewers - younger than me! - would think Hoffman is over the top, that such a person could never exist. WRONG! He is spot-on - every mannerism of body and voice is exactly like Truman's.
What an incredible race for the Best Actor Oscar!
posted by Beth at 8:23 PM
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