2 ½ stars (out of four)
Leonardo DiCaprio assumes the titular role in J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood’s stately biopic about the former
head of the FBI. The film consists mostly of routine biopic fare but also finds
room for some deeply Freudian moments that flesh out some of the less factually
certain details of J. Edgar Hoover’s personal life.
The film opens in the late 1960s as Hoover nears retirement
and DiCaprio resembles Orson Welles’s Charles Foster Kane more than a little as
he shuffles around Hoover’s Washington office buried under prosthetics. Hoover
dictates his biography to a revolving series of interns and the film uses this
framework to launch into flashbacks that detail the formation of the FBI and
Hoover’s subsequent efforts to improve and perfect the Bureau.
In these flashbacks we are introduced to all the salient
players in Hoover’s life: his personal assistant Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), his
mother (Judi Dench) and FBI Assistant Director Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer).
Meanwhile the film addresses still relevant issues of national security when
they were in their formative years of debate and controversy. To what degree
must the American people’s privacy be sacrificed in order to protect the
country from its enemies? Hoover’s insistence on obtaining information at
whatever cost can be viewed as a sort of early Patriot Act philosophy but
Eastwood presents this from a historical, not allegorical, perspective.
Hoover also understood the importance of good PR and much
time is spent on the media spectacle that was the Lindbergh baby kidnapping,
one of the first opportunities for the then-young FBI to prove its worth to a
captivated public. Eastwood also has some fun depicting the FBI’s tenuous
relationship with Hollywood and the movies’ representation of gangsters and
G-men. Many of these scenes engage in the self-conscious reminders that we are
watching a historical drama that have become typical of a big-budget biopic.
Some of these moments are playful (Hoover’s radical idea of creating a centralized
database of so-called “finger imprints” is met with much reluctance) while
others are tedious (when talking to Bobby Kennedy, Hoover has to clarify that
he means the President when he says, “your brother”).
Though J. Edgar
enters decidedly murkier territory in terms of historical accuracy when
presenting Hoover’s personal life, the film finds its stride dramatically when
it strays from the strict facts. Judi Dench smolders and snarls with maternal
oppression as Anne Marie Hoover, whose relationship with her son (mostly
depicted in scenes set in her bedroom) seems eerily intimate yet cold. Despite
their closeness (Hoover continues to live with his mother long after most birds
choose to leave the nest), she has little regard for her son’s emotions.
The same cannot be said of Clyde Tolson, whom Hoover takes on
as his right-hand man early on and quickly forms a deep friendship with. Their
relationship, which always seems on the verge of blossoming into something more
but never quite does, provides J. Edgar
with its emotional core; the pair’s scenes of understated flirtation are among
the best in the film. Armie Hammer, whose face resembles that of a Ken doll –
both rugged and smoothly plastic – had a star turn playing opposite himself as
the Winklevoss twins in last year’s The Social Network and again reminds us how important a strong
supporting performance can be. In his scenes with Hammer, DiCaprio loosens up
and gives his portrayal of Hoover some much needed warmth and humanity.
Underneath the hard-edged FBI director, DiCaprio finds an emotionally complex
man.
Unfortunately the film never convincingly pulls these two
halves of Hoover – the professional and the personal – into a coherent whole.
The script, written by Dustin Lance Black (who won an Oscar for his Milk screenplay) feels disjointed. The film does not
fully connect the anguish of Hoover, the private citizen, to the ambition of
Hoover, the public figure; there is no Rosebud to provide us the narrative key
into his life story. Had the screenplay been better focused, these
contradictions of character might have made a scintillating portrait, but
though the film offers some fascinating anecdotes and plenty of austere
reminders of Hoover’s historical legacy, the man himself remains an elusive
figure.
- Steve Avigliano, 11/18/11
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