Help me out. Who are we supposed to care about here?

Rating: 1/10 (22 March 2017)

I saw this when it came out in '05. I've just re-watched all but the opening which I missed on HBO and could not care less about going back for. I had a sick feeling the first time I saw this and that was confirmed tonight. First, this screenplay demands that we ache for a sad one hit wonder of a writer and his grotesque infatuation for a quadruple murder who, "In Cold Blood", murdered a father, a mother, their son, and their daughter. For nothing. Their murders, much like the source material, are used only as a means to comprehend the killers. This film is as senseless as the crime it purports to be about.
I was a big Hoffman fan: "Talented Mr. Ripley", "Happiness", "Boogie Nights", (not "The Master") he always delivered. And he does here too. Sort of. But to what effect? We're supposed to have sympathy for his bizarre crush on a caged killer? And the improvisation scene after the book reading was cartoonish. And Dan Futterman? Why? How sick do you have to be to write THIS story from THIS point of view? And where did this phantom boyfriend come from? There is no historical basis for Truman Capote to have a "boyfriend". He was a sad lonely man who wrote one book, could never finish another, became famous for being "odd", and then died a lonely alcoholic.
I don't expect to make any friends here with this review. It's fashionable to like this crap. No thanks. The empathy is forced and pointed in all the wrong directions. I would really like for someone to tell me who we are supposed to care about in this story...