A very good movie with a great performance

Rating: 8/10 (3 September 2006)

Capote is astonishing in the depths it dives. Truman Capote's motives and feelings are laid bare before us and we find ourselves sympathizing with him even while we are disgusted by him. The success of this movie is that it is brutally honest and yet at the end we still love Capote.
Part of that is due to the brilliant performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. As Truman Capote travels to Kansas to write an article about how the random murders of a well-respected family are affecting the community, Hoffman does not show us how Capote changes. Hoffman changes. He goes from objective outsider to involved insider and Hoffman makes the change flawlessly- you don't even notice the change, you're so engrossed in the character.
Hoffman is not the only good thing about this movie, but he is definitely the best. The writing is good, though strangely distant and shallow at times. But that's only sometimes- the way the screenplay takes its time digging deeper is wonderful. That combined with the performances and the directing creates a very good movie.