{"id":5087,"date":"2015-12-08T07:15:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T12:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5087"},"modified":"2016-01-13T07:31:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T12:31:28","slug":"trumbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5087","title":{"rendered":"Trumbo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bryan

Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo<\/p><\/div>\n

After practically having the frequently shown previews for Trumbo <\/em>memorized (trailer<\/a>), <\/em>I finally saw the film itself. (Though one trailer scene with Helen Mirren didn\u2019t actually appear in the movie. Weird.) This is the second movie in the past week that celebrates the role of righteous writers<\/em> in upholding social values: Trumbo<\/em> supporting \u201cfreedom of thought and expression,\u201d and Spotlight<\/em><\/a> pursuing \u201ctruth, however uncomfortable.\u201d I\u2019m basking in reflected authorial glory!<\/p>\n

As you undoubtedly know, Trumbo<\/em> is the story of the Hollywood 10, writers blacklisted during the communist witch-hunts of the late 1940s and 1950s. Joe McCarthy and all that. When called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Dalton Trumbo (played beautifully by Bryan Cranston) and the other nine refused to give Congress information about their beliefs or to rat out others in the film industry. As a result, a number of them including Trumbo went to prison for contempt of Congress (\u201cI am<\/em> contemptuous of Congress,\u201d he said after the HUAC hearing).<\/p>\n

He was in the slammer for 10 months and once he was out could no longer get work.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some industry personages\u2014in the movie, producer Buddy Ross (Roger Bart) and actor Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg)\u2014saw their careers going up in smoke and did testify (though in real life, Robinson did not name names). The movie effectively skewers that Great American Flag-Waving Hero, John Wayne, who managed to avoid any military service during World War II and Korea. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to act as if you won the war single-handedly,\u201d Trumbo tells him, \u201cit would be more believable if you\u2019d actually served,\u201d as he and so many of his black-listed colleagues had.<\/p>\n

They represent the tip of the iceberg of people harmed by the virulent anti-Communism of the day, and although the movie is about the Hollywood 10, it\u2019s really about the Hollywood One, Trumbo, the most accomplished of the lot. The composite character Arlen Hird has the unenviable job of being Trumbo\u2019s verbal sparring partner and representing an amalgam of several of the harder-line writers\u2019 views. Trumbo is unfailingly supportive of him, even though he inserts his political views into scripts (which Trumbo rewrites) and clearly doesn\u2019t trust Trumbo. (This is where the \u201cYou talk like a radical, but you live like a rich man\u201d line from the trailer fits in.)<\/p>\n

While not a lot of acting was required of Diane Lane as Trumbo\u2019s wife, she did a fine job, and Helen Mirren is perfect as the odious Hedda Hopper, blackmailer without portfolio. As writer Hird, comedian Louis C.K.\u2019s acting inexperience shows a bit, as he\u2019s up against such acting superstars, while John Goodman is all prickly geniality and Alan Tudyk plays a credible Ian McLellan Hunter. Hunter wins the Academy Award for the Roman Holiday<\/em> script (the Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn classic), but Trumbo wrote it. In fact, Trumbo and the others write many screenplays for which they receive credit only belatedly, if at all. The back of the blacklist can\u2019t be broken until a few Hollywood luminaries are willing to give appropriate screen credit.<\/p>\n

Directed by Jay Roach with a solid script from John McNamara. While in their vision, the character of Trumbo doesn\u2019t change much over the course of the story\u2014except perhaps to learn not to take what he most cherishes for granted\u2014\u201che is no more or less principled at the end than he was at the start,\u201d said Anthony Lane<\/a> in The New Yorker<\/em>. He is forgiving, though, and in the end acknowledges that all humans are a mix of good acts and bad (except perhaps for Hedda Hopper).<\/p>\n

The real opportunity for learning lies with the audience. While those anti-Communist days may now seem rather quaint\u2014Congress taking on a bunch of two-fingered typists\u2014there always are people who believe they know best what other people should think, who believe others are too dim or inattentive to grasp hidden political messages, who think citizens are like children who have to be protected from difficult ideas. That, Trumbo<\/em> seems to say, is still the danger. Another film well worth the price of a ticket.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating 71%; audiences 84%.<\/p>\n

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