"You don't just write happy endings - you believe them!"
Jay Roach's Trumbo (2015) depicts an unlikely hero: a Communist screenwriter victimized by, then triumphant over, the forces of reaction. Hollywood's blacklist has inspired several films (The Front, Guilt By Association), but Trumbo's straightforward approach works wonderfully. Allowing his actors and screenplay to shine, Roach crafts a sharp, engaging drama.Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) mixes novels like Johnny Got His Gun with Hollywood screenplays. In 1947, Trumbo testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee and is jailed for contempt. Trumbo's unable to find work; along with schlock producer Frank King (John Goodman), he helps blacklisted writers pen uncredited screenplays. When Kirk Douglas (Dean O'Gorman) taps Trumbo to write Spartacus, columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals prepare an all-out attack.
Even in 2015, the Red Scare remains a battleground in America's interminable "culture wars." Conservatives complain that Trumbo and other Hollywood Communists were Soviet apologists, which in 1947 meant lockstep endorsement of Joseph Stalin's gulag state. One could also attack Walt Disney entertaining Leni Riefenstahl, or Robert Taylor campaigning for segregation. Viewers can reject Trumbo's ideology without condoning the blacklist, which targeted leftists not for actual subversion but unpopular opinions.
John McNamara's screenplay stresses the period's painful moral quandaries. Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) defends the Hollywood Ten but recants when his career stalls, leading to a break with Trumbo. Producer Buddy Ross (Roger Bart) denounces Trumbo then produces his scripts under the table. John Wayne's (David James Elliott) sincere anticommunism seems benign compared to Hopper, who views the Cold War as a personal power trip. She baits Louis B. Mayer (Richard Portnow) with anti-Semitic slurs and organizes the American Legion into nationwide boycotts.
Trumbo avoids sanctimony through McNamara's snappy, literate writing. When a journalist threatens to expose Trumbo's work for King, the producer counters "None of the people who see my movies can fucking read!" John Goodman's agreeable hamminess matches Louis C.K.'s wariness as Arlen Hird, Communist trapped writing sci-fi schlock. He ridicules Trumbo's limousine liberalism, maintaining an expansive ranch while advocating radical causes. Not that the conservatives are less hypocritical; HUAC chief J. Parnell Thomas (James DuMont) winds up in prison alongside Trumbo for tax evasion.
"There are many ignorant and angry people in the world. They seem to be breeding in record numbers."
Humor emanates naturally from the blacklist's absurdity. Trumbo writes Oscar-winning scripts for Roman Holiday and The Brave One without credit. When Douglas and Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel), pitching Exodus, approach Trumbo, he manipulates his suitors into offering him credit. Here Trumbo's canniness comes into play; by accepting hack work, he rebuilds his reputation as a team player while exposing Hopper's pettiness. It takes more than speechmaking, rather a decade of patient, degrading drudgery, to overcome repression.Bryan Cranston impresses with a multifaceted performance. He plays up Trumbo's eccentricities (writing in his bathtub, befriending birds) and quick wit while also showing his anguish and idealism. True, Trumbo saddles him with a wife (Diane Lane) and daughter exasperated by his efforts, and death threats from reactionary neighbors (scenes also infesting Bridge of Spies, this fall's other Red Scare drama). But Cranston plays even these scenes with rock-hard conviction, making Trumbo an unlikely but engaging protagonist.
Helen Mirren is delightfully waspish, all well-heeled hatefulness in a silly hat. David James Elliott provides a game John Wayne impression ("That's me, Hedda - all cuddles!"), despite barely resembling the Duke. Michael Stuhlbarg looks more like Ted Cruz than Edward G. Robinson, though it's hard to fault his acting. Christian Berkel's obnoxious Otto Preminger nearly steals the film; Dean O'Gorman makes Kirk Douglas both friendly and tough. Stephen Root, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Elle Fanning have minor roles.
I'm puzzled by Trumbo's mixed reception. It's true that Jay Roach's direction often has a made-for-TV feel (he did direct Recount and Game Change for HBO) and that history's simplified. But I can't grasp criticisms of the film's dramaturgy or Cranston's performance. Trumbo has the right mixture of gravitas and wit that far outweigh its minor missteps.
