Capote: In Cold Blood

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2006)

Imitation and mimicry is honed to a fine art in Capote, but does that really stand up to the art of creative invention when all you have to go on for character study is an author's work of fiction? Considering the competition Phillip Seymour Hoffman was up against in this year's Oscars, I wonder if his shoe-in for best impersonation was totally fair. The Academy does like it's celebrity imitators: Joaquin Pheonix nodded for his role as Johnny Cash, David Straitharn as Ed Murrow, Russell Crowe as Jim Braddock. Academy Award notwithstanding, Hoffman did give a tremendous performance, however much he was helped along by the Capote archives.
The story revolves around famous eccentric author Truman Capote and the execution (perhaps even on two counts here) of his last book, In Cold Blood. Capote was inspired by a horrific farm family murder in the sleepy town of Hocombe, Kansas to come and gather research. One of the pair of convicted killers, Perry Smith, has a sensitive side, and effectively manipulates Capote (himself a master manipulator) into forming a complex friendship. Capote says at one point 'it was like they grew up in the same house, and he went out the front door while Perry went out the back'. They had both been abandoned and abused as children, but made different choices about how they let it affect them. Truman Capote turned his demons inward and spun out stories with a close observation of people and their daily tragedies. Perry Smith took hostage an entire family and savagely murdered them for less than fifty dollars.
Capote offers help with the killers' appeals with the intent of drawing out his story, but ultimately, does not want to save them. It's a quandary he deals with by resorting to a fierce alcoholism.
The film has a great attention to period details, with the 1950's fashions and swanky black tie book parties, but I was left oddly cold by the story. I failed to really empathise with Perry, especially after he finally divulges the events of that gristly night, where he was completely in control and slashed the throat of the 'kind gentleman who was scared of him.'
The climactic moments of the film came close to being maudlin to me, and seemed to tread very familiar ground. Capote is well worth your patience for a glimpse into the psyche of a ruined man, and for fine performances from all the leads, but it didn't move me. It almost seemed too quietly measured, too calculatingly paced, that when the big moment came it fell suddenly short somehow.
Summary: A familiar story of complex relationships which is part crime investigation, part character drama and will appeal to fans of Truman Capote and Mockingbird author Harper Lee.