Hoffman excels

Rating: 10/10 (11 March 2006)

Having just watched Capote, I think I can safely say that Hoffman has produced, in his portrayal of troubled and manipulative writer Truman Capote, the best performance of the decade, deservedly winning the Oscar. The film shows the way in which Capote, while in the process of writing his undisputed masterpiece In Cold Blood, lied and deceived his way into the trust of those closest to, and perpetrating, the Clutter killings.
Hoffman constructs a brooding, complex, insecure and lonely figure with Capote, as we slowly are privy to the writer becoming the lies he has peddled. By the film's end, the audience is left unsure as to who the real Capote is; the extroverted entertainer who's the toast of glitzy parties, the lonely alcoholic jealous of the success of his friends or the cold and distant analyst of the two Clutter killers.
Worth seeing just for Hoffman's virtuoso performance, but much more than that. A classic in the waiting and highly recommended.