Major Disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (7 April 2007)

This should have been brilliant: Truman Capote was a great writer with a story of his own begging to be told; "In Cold Blood" changed literature; Smith & Hickock were a special case of murderers. And PS Hoffman is one of the better actors working today.
So what happened? Why is this movie dull, boring, lifeless - or if nothing else just plain disappointing? For one thing, it's a lot like "Ray". PS Hoffman and Foxx get into the character, live the character, are the character. Foxx WAS Ray Charles; PS Hoffman IS Truman Capote. And that's the problem: the movie watches PS Hoffman BE Truman Capote: the accent, manner, tone, movements, attitude. It's lets him go and do what he wants. It was Ray all over again. You can here the crew clapping after every scene - folks fainting with disbelief at how perfect, how brilliant, how exact, how PS Hoffman IS Capote, "you're more Truman than he was", "you are Truman", "it's so ...", "you're so ...", ..... And so each scene is wrapped based on how perfectly nuanced Hoffman was.
This makes it like one of those one-man Broadway shows where somebody is FDR, is Truman, is whomever. Yes, Hoffman was Capote. He's even incredible in parts eg. when he's lying to Smith about the book's publication and title. But that doesn't make a decent movie.
Kenner is a bossy and distant Harper Lee, with lots of side looks and glances and innuendos on the phone.
The dialogue overall is trite and forced. At least the dialogue you can hear. Hoffman-Capote speaks softly and in a mild Southern accent that is difficult to follow. I turned the volume up and down so many times that I finally realized it was impossible to hear and just gave up.
The cutting is impossible. Often you just start to get the feel for a scene when it jumps, sometimes even "one year later". Unnecessary cuteness is thrown in for no reason eg. (someone seeing Harper Lee) "You're that book - 'Kill a Bird'".
What is especially hard to follow is the mixing of the sensitive emotional Capote with the callous center of attention at parties Capote. I assume this was the real and much-conflicted Truman Capote. Unfortunately it just doesn't work - when we see him being touched by Smith near the end it seems like acting.
Worth seeing to watch PS Hoffman work but a major disappointment.