In “Capote,” seeing isn’t always believing

Capote (2005)
United Artists presents a Bennett Miller film, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener. Written by Dan Futterman; based on a book by Gerald Clarke. 115m. R for some violent images and brief strong language.

3.5 stars

The words escape curiously, much like a balloon that is being pinched as it releases air. And the accompanying gestures are unquestionably flamboyant. It’s hard not to immediately judge New Yorker writer and bon vivant Truman Capote by his startling appearance.

But Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who himself has undergone a physical transformation to portray Capote, says as the celebrated author: “Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong.”

And herein lays the crux of the film’s intrigue. There’s a sort of schizophrenia going on here. The film, through its protagonist, implies that it’s wrong to assume the worst about Capote, all while depicting the author habitually manipulating his relationships for a better story.

The willing victims are residents of Holcumb, Kan., a small town rocked by a quadruple homicide at the Clutter family farm. In what is tantamount to a six-year obsession, Capote decides to make his long-awaited follow-up to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” a novelized accounting of the murderers.

The film concentrates entirely on the Capote’s journey to create “In Cold Blood,” a work that brought him national prominence. The screenplay, by first time writer Dan Futterman, makes great pains to tell a tale of outsiders. But despite many promising attempts, it never fully grasps Capote’s maddening methods.

Capote, an unabashed socialite and acknowledged homosexual, wouldn’t have made inroads with Holcomb’s more tightlipped locals without the help of childhood friend and fellow author, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener). She softened their sensibilities, a move that proved essential for Capote, who feigned that he did not need inside information but often thrived on it.

The author’s saccharine charm leads to his first big break, when he is given time to speak with Clutter killer Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). While accomplice Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) befits the designation of sociopath, Smith seems to be more mild mannered and soft spoken.

This is ultimately where the seduction begins. Capote, a man of great wit, offers the killer a modicum of friendship. He preys on the criminal’s lifelong lack of companionship to elicit material for the book. And his interview style, in which he engages in conversations without taking notes, disarms the killer.

The film’s strength is that is demonstrates Capote’s recklessness, first in choosing such an involved story and second, when realizing the story had no definitive end. It’s maddening, to both the protagonist and his audience, that the killer’s appeals receive favorable attention from the higher courts. As the ending to the story becoming increasingly vague, Capote begins his torrid descent into alcoholism.

It’s not that Capote is immoral, because the guilt of his manipulation is manifested through his alcohol and cigarette-laced routine. But he seems to detach from perhaps the cruelest suggestion, by Lee: that he helped the men stay alive when it suited him and then stood idly by when the book needed closure.

All this is portrayed frighteningly well by Hoffman, who deservedly received an Academy Award nomination recently. His role outshines the movie’s sometimes languishing forward progress, which seems idiosyncratic as Hoffman is its primary driving force. Perhaps we’re most impressed with the physical transformation, one that rivals a “Raging Bull”-era Robert De Niro or Christian Bale’s disappearance in “The Machinst.”

The film implicitly suggests that researching “In Cold Blood” was, in essence, Capote’s undoing. His obsessive need to catalogue the murder could have catalyzed his alcoholism and infidelity. Yet the booze seems to be a physical manifestation of his sorrow, never forgiving himself for being abandoned as a child or for exploiting that same idiosyncrasy in his subject.

Despite a myriad of ego trips and celebrity gatherings, “Capote” suggests its protagonist’s world was depressingly insular. The true Capote was not a martini-clad socialite, but a man so paralyzed by his inadequacies he couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed. “Capote” excels because it takes a chance on an unflattering portrait of its subject.