Brother's Keeper?

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2005)

Capote has two and a half problems.
1) It is never addressed that, while declaiming autobiographical fiction and then writing a non-fiction book in which he was highly involved but deleted the biographical element, that his friend Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird" not only was autobiographical, but included Truman Capote himself as a character (Dill).
2) It is never addressed what punishment Capote believed was fitting for the two killers: the question of whether Capote's final reluctance to get another lawyer for the killers may have been because he initially did that to guarantee a fair trial and then, a fair trial having been conducted, did not see any reason to further the possibility that they would escape a deserved punishment because of a technicality. The basis of the appeal was "Inadequate Counsel," Capote provided them with adequate counsel and they lost. I am not saying that they deserved death, or that Mr. Capote was for or against the death penalty, only that after a certain point he perhaps felt the State had decided their punishment fairly and had no wish to further contest that. It still wouldn't invalidate his own personal crisis.
Â½) For shorthand's sake, sometimes Capote the character has to be less subtle in his manipulation than he undoubtedly was at the time.
Apart from that it is possibly the best film so far this year. Expertly cast, written, directed and paced, it is a measured study of a man whose intelligence pushes him towards a moral ambiguity that his core decency cannot reconcile. Like the two ciphers for Leopold and Loeb in Hitchcock's "Rope," Capote attempts to live as though he is above the moral classification of people as either decent and good (Harper Lee, Jack Dunphy, his lover, played by Bruce Greenwood, and lawman Alvin Dewey, played by Chris Cooper) or immoral. It is an oversimplification that he seems to find quaint, but in using Perry Smith and allowing himself to be used by him while at the same time valuing Smith's friendship and being valued, he finds that he cannot play Smith's game; he finds that he is essentially moral and that it is too late, he has already betrayed his morality. The dissonance wrecks his life.
Catherine Keener, cast perfectly for the first time in her life, radiates goodness, decency, intelligence and warmth; one can see how her Harper Lee's belief in Capote could of itself be the explicit endorsement of his core decency the film wisely declines to otherwise provide. Nearly certain Oscar Nomination, and I pity Sandra Bullock to try to match this next year. Bruce Greenwood adds shadings of caution and shows how another essentially moral, decent person can chafe and bristle, can be a complicated human and not just a box of sunshine. That and his expert projection of a lack of neediness are what make his attraction for Capote apparent. Chris Cooper can't win an Oscar for this film, but only because the part is too peripheral to the story; if there had been opportunity for more involvement (denied by history and therefore unrewriteable) he would have walked off with the show. The character is one of his best since "Matewan" and could merit another movie: The Adventures of Alvin Dewey, of course. Bob Balaban is dependably excellent. Clifton Collins, Jr., is quite serviceable as Perry Smith, but I sometimes had the feeling that he was deliberately blurring lines and obfuscating instead of making precise choices, playing "keep-away" with his characterization. I was also a bit surprised that Perry's character did not use Capote's attraction to him more explicitly for manipulation. It makes him at some times as nuanced and subtle a manipulator as Capote; the duality is warranted, but perhaps Smith should have been cruder and hence more of a messy human being and less of a theme-serving foil.
The script is expertly paced, and Dan Futterman shows a great facility for the shape of a scene; all biopics should manage to have a through-line like this one. Hopeful Oscar Nomination. Director Bennett Miller obviously has complete faith in his cast yet does not turn make you feel like the camera is a puppy dog licking them all over the way John Madden does (inexplicably) in "Proof." His attention to detail and scope makes this not just a star-vehicle movie like "Proof" or "Sylvia," where complex characters were drafted into vanity projects. Another hopeful Oscar Nomination.
What Hoffman makes apparent is that Capote is always the most interesting person in the room. He holds himself above other people, but he probably should. He is able to be manipulative and heartbreakingly honest at the same time and doesn't seem to feel that it takes away from the value of the confidence related that it was done to obtain something. Often, it almost feels like he views these exchanges as barter, and would not feel comfortable if he was simply telling without receiving anything concrete in return. He is condescending and ingenuous at the same time. He attempts to write "In Cold Blood" in cold blood, with complete objectivity. He ultimately cannot outsmart himself.
Philip Seymour Hoffman will be nominated certainly, and may win, and should, at least at this point. We'll see what the rest of the year has to offer. I can't really imagine anyone trumping this performance, but just because he deserves to win doesn't mean he will; remember that the Oscars are a joke and that if he does win it is liable to make his life more, not less, difficult; remember that Samuel Jackson said that he doesn't really want an Oscar because he already has the career he wants and it would just drive his price up; and Hoffman has that theatre to run.