Hoffman is great but his character is so difficult to like that it cries out for a wider focus in the material, which it has but not as strong as I would've liked

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2006)

Truman Capote is an author and journalist who spies his next project among the stories in the paper  the apparent motiveless murder of a family of four in Kansas. He goes to the town along with Harper Lee to try and do an article about how the callous crime has affected the town but realises that there is more to this story than just an article and decides to write a book. When two men are captured and quickly convicted for the crime, Truman helps to get them better lawyers for their appeal in return for unlimited visitation rights with the two  specifically Perry Smith. While Truman wins the total trust and friendship of Smith, he also knows that for his own good he must get all he can from Perry to make his book as good as possible.
With all the Oscar hype over Hoffman's performance and all the awards he is up for I decided to go and see this for myself despite not having read any of Capote's work or indeed knowing more than the documentary I watch a week prior had taught me (which wasn't much). The film opens with the aftermath of a cold and cruel murder and sets the coldly detached air that the film carries consistently really well. It is as much a presence as Capote himself and indeed the two compliment each other as they overlap. However this also backfired a it on me because the film never shirked from highlighting how mercenary and exploitative Capote was towards Smith; it may have made out he couldn't forgive himself at the end but by the standards of the Hollywood biopic redemption, that was very small beer. But by nature of Capote being so hard to like I found myself looking for a hook to the film; the story itself is good but as Truman is the focus he undermines it by repelling the audience. To counter it I thought the film would make more of the theme rather than the man by looking at the role of journalism generally in terms of being able to coldly report on subjects while also getting close to them, however although it did do this through Truman, I didn't think that it did it as well as it could have done.
So for this reason I felt oddly detached from the film and like it wasn't sure how to totally engage the audience. That said it was still very strong because the repellent nature of its subject (the person and the crime) easily held my interest even with the cold approach it took. Hoffman's Capote is fantastic of course. Yes he has the voice down pretty well but his performance is more impressive because he gives a convincingly selfish and horrible little character that is still interesting. He plays him with such layering and conviction that I think he deserves the praise he is being given. Keener has perhaps a smaller role but she is as reliable as ever; as indeed are turns from Cooper, Greenwood and others. Collins Jr is oft-typecast in banger roles so it was good to see him in a better character and he does well despite not really being given the time to get to the heart of his character  which is fair enough I suppose as he is not the focus of the film.
Overall this was a worthy if not easy film to watch. The performances are good and the subject matter intelligent and interesting. The nature of the main character makes it hard to emotionally get into the film but generally the interesting material makes it easy to get into even if I do think more could have been done with the interesting theme of journalists getting too close to their subjects and their motivations for doing so.