Morbidly fascinating, impeccably-acted film inspires research and investigation...

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2006)

When a farm family is murdered in 1959 Kansas, New York writer Truman Capote and friend Harper Lee (on the verge of getting her novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" published) travel to the Southwest to get the details on both the killing and the mourning townspeople for a Capote-authored short-story (which became his 'non-fiction novel' "In Cold Blood"). A calculating, well-observed but chilly film, curious--and morbid--not just for the facts of the horrific case but for laying out the quirky inner-workings of Truman Capote--an enigmatic, perplexing character all his own. Brilliantly shot and edited, the film is enacted by a terrific cast (including Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead and Oscar-worthy Chris Cooper as Kansas detective Alvin Dewey, whom Capote had a tough relationship with, and yet wrote about rather heroically). The details are sometimes so correct they are amusingly captured, as with the initially-indifferent Kansas residents taking a liking to Capote or killer Dick Hickock's subtle jealousy at Capote preferring Perry Smith over him. The pacing is sure and steady--though sometimes too quick, with many potentially interesting incidents taking place off-screen--and the central figure is marvelously realized (by Hoffman, and also by director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman). Never less than intriguing, the film is even better than Richard Brooks' adaptation of Capote's book in 1967. *** from ****