Movie Review: "Capote" Is Beyond Definition

Moviegoers deciding to see "Capote" with the notion that they will walk away with more of an understanding of the megalomaniacal, self-destructive author will be disappointed; Truman Capote is more of an enigma at the end of the movie than he was at the beginning.

The film depicts a four-year segment of Capote's life which begins days after four members of a Kansas farm family are brutally murdered, and ends after the execution of one of the killers. In between, Capote finds himself drawn into a complex, approach-avoid relationship with convicted murderer Perry Smith as he researches and writes In Cold Blood, his best-selling book on the murders. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman literally vanishes into the role of Capote, who veers between complete self-absorption and an overwhelming empathy for Smith and back again, and one has to wonder: Is the compassion real, or coldly manipulative, or both? Clifton Collins Jr. is quietly intense as the young Smith, who comes to rely on Capote's friendship and is periodically abandoned; the young convict reaches a kind of peaceful resolution of his feelings for Capote at the end. Not so with Capote; hardly a model of stability at the outset, his personality disintegrates until by the end of the film he is firmly locked onto the path which will eventually destroy him.

Director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman make a gutsy decision in refusing to explain or psychoanalyze either Capote or Smith; while it's normal to want explanations - Why did the killers do what they did? What was Capote's motivation in helping, and then not helping, and then meeting a final obligation to Smith? Did Capote, who saw himself in Smith, see a sympathetic human being, or did he see a monster? - The reality is that real life rarely has the kind of answers or emotional resolution we all crave. Hoffman's unflinching portrayal of Capote makes no apologies or explanations for any of the writer's actions but simply shows him in all his contradictions.

A possible irony of the movie is that In Cold Blood, the pivot around which the movie revolves, was recognized at the time of its writing as an entirely new literary genre, and "Capote" is so utterly unique that it cannot be defined as belonging in any conventional category. Neither standard bio-pic nor psychological drama, it is nothing so much as Truman Capote's shattered psyche splayed open for everyone to see. Both Hoffman and Collins deserve kudos in what is essentially a two-man show, in spite of spot-on performances by an excellent supporting cast.