Startling Hoffman Performance Emblazons Intense Treatment of Capote's Life-Changing Episode

Rating: 8/10 (24 December 2005)

Although he was a celebrated author, I have to admit my initial familiarity with Truman Capote came from his frequent appearances during the 1970's on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, as well as his silly appearance as duplicitous millionaire Lionel Twain in Neil Simon's 1978 "Murder by Death". Capote's effete manner and often patronizing comments (e.g., he opined that all actors were basically stupid) made such a strong impression on me that it was not until much later that I realized he wrote such gems such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "The Grass Harp", "The Thanksgiving Visitor", and of course, his seemingly atypical masterwork, "In Cold Blood". It is the intensive research and writing of this latter work, a self-proclaimed "non-fiction novel" published to great acclaim in 1965, which is the basis of this well-crafted though sometimes slowly paced movie.
For those who have not read "In Cold Blood" or seen the stark 1967 film adaptation directed by Richard Brooks, the true-life story focuses on Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, a pair of drifters who break into the home of a Kansas farm family in November 1959 based on a rumor that they had $10,000 stashed away. Upon discovering that the family had no money on hand, Smith and Hickock systematically killed the four members of the family. First-time director Bennett Miller recreates much of the book's plot, including the gory crime, within the context of the movie. On a broader level, this film focuses on Capote's journey of over four years in chronicling the story until the inevitable ending, and in the meantime getting to know the killers intimately, especially the more enigmatic Smith. Actor Dan Futterman, familiar from his guest turns on "Will and Grace" and "Sex in the City", has written a delicately balanced screenplay that highlights the contradictory forces with which Capote was grappling in getting his story on paper.
Although Miller's direction and Futterman's script are both strong for rookie efforts, the key to the film's effectiveness lies in the performances. In a startling transformation, Philip Seymour Hoffman inhabits Capote from the most subtle mannerism to his inner soul. Always a fine character actor, Hoffman brings his dead-on impersonation to a level of consciousness that exudes just the right shadings of narcissism, vulnerability and self-destruction. From the snippets of Capote regaling cocktail party guests in Manhattan with his stories to his useless wardrobe name-dropping in Kansas, there is no question in Hoffman's performance that Capote is a man in love with himself. As author Harper Lee, Capote's closest confidante and research partner on the killings, the always watchable Catherine Keener unaffectedly presents the sturdiness of her plain-spoken character, and their close, painfully honest relationship is believable.
The other striking performance is provided by Clifton Collins Jr., who brings out the alternating coldness and vulnerability in Smith, especially as his character naively and desperately comes to regard Capote as his friend. The prison cell scenes between Hoffman and Collins have an intriguing, disturbing charge that subconsciously seems to point to the homo-erotic nature of their relationship. Smaller roles are filled expertly  Chris Cooper in familiar territory as Sheriff Alvin Dewey and Bruce Greenwood as Capote's patient lover, author Jack Dunphy  though their scenes feel truncated compared to the rest of the story. In fact, the film feels rushed toward the end as Capote is obviously deeply affected by the events and his own culpability in the killers' fate. I only wish there was a greater sense of a denouement to the film, but regardless, the film is certainly worth seeing for Hoffman's masterful performance.