An absolutely first class performance

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 2006)

The summary line is essentially what one local critic asserts. I'll try to answer that at the end of my comments.
But first to the performance. Until recently, most people recognize Philip Seymour Hoffman, if at all, from his supporting roles in "The talented Mr. Ripley", "Almost famous", "Red Dragon", "Cold Mountain" etc. I have been fortunate to see his almost flawless performance as a compulsive gambler in "Owning Mahowny" (2003), for which he should have got at least an Oscar nomination. That excellent movie, unfortunately, went almost unnoticed, attracting only 61 user comments in IMDb.
In a recent "60 Minutes" interview, Hoffman (or some called "the other Hoffman") intimated that he does not want to be a celebrity because that takes something away from his ability to be whatever the character he happens to be portraying. He quoted a very convincing case: his close friends watching his performance will not see the same thing as a member of the general audience sees. We only have to think about Tom Cruise to realise how true this is - have you ever seen a Tom Cruise movie in which you don't remember that it's Cruise who is on the screen. There may be some exceptions when you have an actor in the calibre of the other Tom. Hoffman may well be an actor of such a calibre but what he said in the interview shows how much of a professional he is.
I won't say anything more about Hoffman because if you are in the least interested in movies, you would have already been tired of reading comments on how he inhibits Trueman Capote, even when it's all so true. I'd rather look at the movie itself instead.
Its premises alone makes this movie intriguingly fascinating. When was the last time you saw an eccentric but brilliant writer pitched against a to-be-convicted murderer, each trying to use the other? This is almost like watching the struggle in the baseball pit, with the pitcher and the batter maneuvering to outsmart each other. Capote wants to get Perry Smith to tell him about that fateful night when Smith and Hickock (who received little attention in this movie) murdered a family in Kansas in cold blood during a robbery. Smith clings on to Capote as his savior. The subtle battle is on.
Despite a pitiable childhood, Smith is a cold blooded killer. Even his own sister warns Capote that under the sensitive and sympathy-winning appearance, his brother is not to be trusted and can kill any one without blinking. Capote, on the other hand, dangles the carrot of getting the best lawyer while all the time aims straight at getting Smith to tell him first-hand what happened on the fateful night. Then, as we are almost ready to believe his tearful plead (to himself essentially) that he couldn't have done anything to save the life of the murderers, his best friend, honest, sensible (and almost just as good a write in her own right) Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) tells him, quietly and calmly "But the truth is, you didn't want to", because only the execution will allow Capote to complete his book.
The beauty of the movie is that it retains the ambiguity. We do not know for sure, one way or the other, whether the two had indeed developed a genuine friendship over the six years from the arrest to the execution. We do see a dissymmetry. During his six years in prison, Smith's only real meaningful connection with the outside world is Capote. To Capote, however, Smith is only a part (albeit a very important part) of his life. The movie makers make sure that we remember this, by showing intervening scenes of Capote being the centre of attention, as he always is, to a crowd of admirers, monopolising a self-indulging conversation, always "in love with himself", as Lee once put it. At the end of one of these scene, after another round of roaring laughters, Capote turns to one of the loyal listeners and quipped "And what have you been doing lately?" More roaring laughters in approval of his sense of humour. There's our man. And yet, in the end, we are left wondering if Capote had really been touch by this whole incident and the eventual death of Smith, thanks to the superb portrayal by Hoffman.
While most of the scenes are indoors, there are, well placed throughout the movie, beautiful shots of the expansive heartland, often with a tiny object (because of the distance), a car or a train, moving slowing across the horizon, accentuating a sense of loneliness.
So, Hoffman aside, is this a good movie? You bet.