Good, but a little too long

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2005)

When I went to see this movie, I didn't know what to expect. I knew close to nothing about the life of Howard Hughes, so I can't judge the accuracy of the film. As the movie started, I wasn't incredibly impressed. It was good, and it was interesting, but I didn't see a lot of the things that, in my opinion, qualify a movie to be nominated for Best Picture. DiCaprio's performance was good, but Hughes seemed to be glorified and his character was kind of inhuman. But as the film went on, I began to notice little things about his character..."eccentricities" as they are called in the movie, which were the beginning of obsessive compulsive disorder. As time passed, you could see the OCD getting worse. But the part of the film that really got to me was when he ended up locked in his screening room, naked, unwilling to touch anything for fear of germs. The cinematography in this scene, and moreover, DiCaprio's performance, made it possible to see exactly how this character felt. The thing that didn't seem plausible to me was how quickly the character recovered from this. Although in the end he relapsed, it didn't seem possible for him to go from complete isolation to contact with thousands of people in such a short time. However, DiCaprio's performance was compelling; I really felt for his character and it would be difficult to make such a big character who lived such an amazing life seem human. Cate Blanchett was also very good as Katherine Hepburn. It was a difficult role to play, but she was very believable. Another thing I didn't like about the movie was its length. I don't normally have a problem with long movies; in fact, I feel that the reason so few good movies are made these days is because most are too short for real character development. And the length of this movie was necessary for Hughes' character to be developed. But parts of the film seemed disjointed, which made it seem longer than it actually was. If it had've flowed together better, the length would not have been a problem for me. Overall, though, I felt that the film was surprisingly good. Considering how commercial the film is, I was surprised at how well made it was.