Capote

This is basically an acting tour de force, with Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Truman Capote with such skill that you’d swear you were in the room with the most wittily self-absorbed, flamboyantly gay, literary bon-vivant since Oscar Wilde went straight. Hoffman, though, can’t do it alone … well, he probably could, and that would be an interesting one-man show. But here, there’s a chance for the attitudes of the other characters to enrich the portrait of Capote, and Bruce Greenwood does this so well that he becomes almost invisible. He plays Capote’s lover, Jack Dunphy, and it’s an intense performance that defines “supporting actor.” Without Greenwood’s Dunphy, Hoffman’s Capote would mean something else entirely. Same goes for Catherine Keener in her portrayal of Capote’s best friend, Nelle Harper Lee (better known as Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird.) The three of them combine to produce one of the richest filmed portraits ever. The story, about Capote’s emotional breakdown while writing In Cold Blood, is gravely compelling, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be going to see this, unless you’re afraid of little bald men who talk funny.