Delayed Reaction: Capote

The Pitch: Truman Capote investigates the murder that inspired his most infamous book.

I'll be sad when I run out of Phillip Seymour Hoffman roles. Excluding TV, shorts, and animated films, he has 50 credits on IMDB. With Capote I've now seen half of them. I doubt I'll ever get to all the films - Something tells me My New Gun isn't worth hunting down - but it is nice to know that I still have plenty of films left to rediscover. Capote is probably his most famous role. Oscars will do that. I have no issue with that. He is excellent. He manages to capture Truman Capote's cartoonishness without sacrificing any of the dramatic beats of the film. That's really hard to do. Having seen all three of Bennett Miller's films (Capote, Moneyball, Foxcatcher), I definitely have a sense of his work now, especially between Capote and Foxcatcher.

Catherine Keener is really good as Harper Lee but the film leans just a little too hard on the dramatic irony about To Kill a Mockingbird's success. Yes, it is pretty cool that these childhood friends both became famous writers and her success came in unassuming fashion. I get it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend