07-03-08 Hollywoodland (2006)

Seen: March 6th, 2007
Format: HD-DVD
Rating: 5

To answer your first question; yes, Affleck was good, even very good.

But this film isn't about Affleck, though it might be about George Reeves, whom Affleck portrays. But I'm not sure.

It also seems to be about a fictional amalgam of several people named Louis Simo and his (their?) family life. It also seems to be about Reeves's relationship with Toni Mannix and Leonore Lemmon. It also seems to be about Reeves's mother. And his agent. And MGM.

And therein lies the problem.

I'll take a stab and say the filmmakers wanted to make a biopic about Reeves, but to make it really interesting, they decided to take a look at his actual death and impose some sort of Rashomon-esque filter to it. And by doing so, and employing the Simo amalgam as their arbiter, they got to investigate not only Reeves's life, but those of his friends and lovers, and the relationship of the fictitious investigator with his fictitious family as well. This, of course, broadens the scope of the potential picture to several people and subsequently to feature-length.

I couldn't understand why I didn't like this film until now.

While the filmmakers claim (and I believe them) that everything involving Reeves was as accurately researched as possible, there is too much that they just can't know. And it is into this region which they postulate and invent potential scenarios. Since these scenarios are wound artfully into the film itself, they are difficult to differentiate (at least at first) from the facts which have been so carefully researched.

All this smacks of the sensationalist journalism that has progressively become the norm over the past decade or more. We are presented with facts, more facts and a myriad of yet more facts, and when the suggestive suppositions insinuate themselves, we're so immersed that we hardly notice.

And on top of this, we're supposed to take some common thread from all this confusion and believe a man has a revelation which is strong enough to dramatically change him for the better.

If the technical perspective of films intrigues you, there's a lot here to appreciate. It didn't go unnoticed, but it wasn't nearly enough to sway me.

See this film. It is strong in many dimensions, George Reeves's story among them. But be prepared to appreciate it for its parts, not the whole.

The Good: Ben Affleck returns to form. Diane Lane is always worth my time.

The Bad: Allegorical tale disguised as a biopic - or vice versa?

The Ugly: An excuse to dress up and play 50s.