Mank

Grade: C

Maybe it’s already happened, but I yearn to see Gary Oldman star in a non-biopic story. Completely original, not based on a book or anything from real life. No fancy makeup or prosthetics. Something like Kevin Spacey’s role in American Beauty or Nicolas Cage’s in The Weather Man. He is one of my favorite actors (The Contender is my favorite of his – a fantastic emotionally charged political thriller), but I am wanting to see what he can do in a film where he’s not over-the-top or playing behind pounds of makeup in a sprawling bombastic 2+ hour biopic. While I am happy he finally won an Oscar a few years ago, Darkest Hour was the worst movie I’ve seen in at least a decade. It was a worthless, tedious march through the cinematic swamp, and I was glad to have it over with.

Mank, the new Netflix Original (and the top Oscar nominee) stars Oldman, directed by one of my favorite directors, David Fincher (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network, Gone Girl). It is about Herman Mankiewicz and the writing process for Citizen Kane, leading up to its release and Oscar wins. It was filmed to look like the kind of movie that may have come out in the 1930s, and it is a triumph in the artistic department. Grainy black-and-white, with the occasional moving vertical line and the dot in the upper right to indicate to the projectionist that it was time to change the reel. Mono soundtrack. Performances, to the degree that I could pick each one out, were fine for 1930s caricatures. I know Amanda Seyfried has a Best Supporting Actress nomination, so I tried to pay extra special attention to the smaller performances by women. There were three I enjoyed. I had to go look up the quotes on IMDb and match them up to Seyfried’s character’s name, but yes, she is quite good. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score was spot on, and that nomination is well-deserved. A few individual elements popped out that I loved – there’s a great long backwards tracking shot that follows three men walking down a long hallway, while various assistants walk the other way and hand stuff to one of them, or have a quick line of dialogue. That had to have taken some serious rehearsal to get all those marks and timings right.

Utimately, though, the whole thing felt flat and left me empty. The best of this year’s Best Picture nominees have done the most with the least. Mank is a lot of great technical style with boring, shallow substance.

Grade: C