REVIEW: J. Edgar (2011, Dir. Clint Eastwood)

Biopics are a difficulty. Somewhere in each and every life there is an interesting story. In the most extraordinary lives there are extraordinary stories. The trick is to find them, frame them, and deliver them to the audience so that you maximise emotional payoff and the message.

Telling someone’s story from start to finish doesn’t often accomplish that.

Screenwriter and playwright, Dustin Lance Black (who incidentally just premiered a stunning new play, ‘8’, which you can watch online) has framed a successful biopic in the past (2010’s Milk for which he won best screenplay at the Academy Awards) and with J. Edgar he has made another solid attempt. Unfortunately, where Black was in sync with his director, Gus Van Sant on Milk, he seems to be in direct conflict with Clint Eastwood. The resulting film is diffuse, confused and entirely lack lustre.

Leonardo di Caprio takes on the role of the infamous J. Edgar Hoover. Clintwood charts Hoover’s rise through his role in the founding of the F.B.I. to his death, all described by Hoover himself to a series of biographers. But where Eastwood seems to want to pull the focus onto the moral turpitude of Hoover and his own personal myth building, Black seems more intent on framing the action through the long standing partnership/relationship between Hoover and F.B.I. protégé, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer).

All of the ingredients were there for a worthy film. With Unforgiven, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood has proven himself to be a brilliant director. Di Caprio is an acting powerhouse (though here he can’t shake his boyishness brings weight to Hoover) and Hammer and Naomi Watts (as Hoover’s long loyal secretary) are both actors with formidable presence. Judi Dench also pops up as Hoover’s domineering mother, and she cannot put in a bad turn in a film. But even with all the talent involved, the film is dead in the water.

Was Hoover gay? Was Hoover a cross-dresser? Was Hoover evil incarnate? The film doesn’t stake claim to a position on any of the contentions surrounding Hoover’s life. There are nods in various directions (a scene with his mother’s pearls after her death had a friend praising Eastwood’s understatement, I thought it was a laughable issue dodge) but no firm standpoint. In the end, the best I could take away from the film was that Hoover was a sad little man. Even then, I don’t think I’m up for pitying him. I’ll save all my pity for Armie Hammer and the hatchet job they did on his makeup.

With a narrower frame, J. Edgar could have really shone; as it is, Clintwood has produced a choppy, unfocused film that adds little to our understanding of Hoover the man, or his impact on the world.

★★