"Capote" contains two key elements in making a feature film successful: A perfect script and a brava performance. The script by Dan Futterman is simply perfect. Futterman, who up until this point has made his name as an actor on TV shows like "Judging Amy" and "Will and Grace," is also the star of one of the best gay films ever made, "Urbania." He's also married to writer Anya Epstein. Perhaps he's picked up a few things working in such quality products over the last few years because his script, his first, is simply perfection.

There is not just a sense of Truman Capote, the author here, but Capote the man and his times. There's much more going on here than just understanding how Capote came to know about the Kansas killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickcock and how he came to meet them and interview them for his book "In Cold Blood." The film, based on Gerald Clarke's book about Truman Capote, is wonderful at showing how important this story was to the author, how it mirrored his own background, how he struggled with the moral and ethical implications of befriending these cold-blooded killers. The fact that Capote, for all intents and purposes, completely redefined the way non-fiction books were written in the 50's with "In Cold Blood" is given its importance in history here. But the film goes far deeper than that. This is the beginning of the blurring of the line, for better or worse, between modern journalism and the celebrity of true crime.

And then there is the real subtext here, which allows us to see Capote, an obviously homosexual man, navigating his path through 1950's society. The juxtaposition of Capote the bon vivant of the NYC party circuit against Capote the investigative reporter in a small town in the Midwest, attempting to garner as much information from the locals as he can. This isn't as obvious and as easy as it might sound for the pure fact that Capote doesn't "pretend" to be anything he is not no matter which social circle he is in. He is a flamboyant gadfly in urban sophisticated setting and he is a focused and inquisitive journalist when working on his book. But Futterman's script is brilliant at making these extreme differences in his persona seem nearly seamless.

To be sure, Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal is nothing short of brilliant and his work here helps to flesh out Futterman's script to its full potential. Hoffman, who is old school chums with Futterman and the film's director Bennett Miller, not only nails Capote's speech and mannerisms, as well as his physicality, he brings forth every single subtle nuance of the man. It is nearly an embodiment rather than a performance. Hoffman seems the logical choice to play Capote but the actor takes the obvious similarities between him and the author and then works them with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker, molding them into a nearly perfect performance. In other words, it isn't just because Hoffman resembles Capote that he so easily performs his role here. He just takes that happy coincidence and parlays it into a winning performance that would probably fool anyone who knew Capote in real life. And, equally to that, he gets all the nuances of Futterman's wonderful and subtle script and works them into his performance as easily as he does the physical mannerisms and vocal lisps. He's more than just a craftsman, he is an artiste. Hoffman fully deserves every accolade thrown upon his work here, and I for one would not be saddened if he walked away with the Oscar.

Even this alone would be more than enough for any film to be worthwhile but Futterman et al are not finished here. At its heart, "Capote" is nothing less than an essay on the impossibility of rectifying one's feelings about the death penalty when faced with comprehending the humanity inherent in even the most brutal and unapologetic of killers. Capote's feelings for Smith waver incessantly throughout the film as does ours. We move from compassionate to horrified to angry to unforgiving as the story of Smith and Hickcock's barbarity becomes more and more clear to us. This is a far more human and realistic treatise on the death penalty than "Dead Man Walking" or "The Green Mile" could ever hope to be. In Capote's feelings for his confidant and friend, a brutal murder and their, we find our own mirrored. That is the truly powerful theme of this film. And it's one that Hoffman, Futterman, and Bennett bring fully to fruition in "Capote."

Notes:

Also with Catherine Keener (as novelist Harper Lee), Clifton Collins, Jr. (as Perry Smith), Chris Cooper, Bruce Greenwood (as novelist Jack Dunphy), Bob Balaban, Amy Ryan, and Mark Pelligrino.

Futterman and Hoffman were given producer credit.

The film open on September 30th, Capote's birthday after debuting at Telluride earlier in the month.

Filmed in Canada and Austin.

The film references Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" in a humorous way once or twice as well as Capote's novel "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The book "In Cold Blood" was made into a film with Robert Blake in 1967.

Viewed at the Dobie in the Art Deco Room in Austin in November, 2005.

Report Card

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+