by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
I confess to being one of the lone few who has not seen either of the Despicable Me films. Its because of this that I really can’t get too excited about Minions opening up this weekend.
Don’t get me wrong. From what I’ve seen of the Minions themselves, they seem like truly hilarious and heartwarming creations, and much like the Penguins in the Madagascar series (which I’ve actually seen and quite enjoy), I’m glad they’re being given their time to shine.
While the Minions will surely bring about lots of fun for their young audiences to savor, its almost a definite that Sandra Bullock voicing the film’s villain Scarlet Overkill, will prove to be one of the film’s great highlights.
It may be an animated film, but the role is definitely a departure for Bullock. To my knowledge, this is technically the first time that the beloved actress has played a villain after years of on-screen turns portraying characters which almost always end up with audience sympathy.
Though they couldn’t be further apart, Bullock’s turn in Minions reminds me of the actress’ turn as Harper Lee in 2006’s Infamous; to this day, her most bold and daring departure on screen.
Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, Infamous is the chronicling of celebrated author Truman Capote’s (Toby Jones) legendary book, In Cold Blood. The true-life story follows the already-successful author and his close friend Lee (Bullock) as they travel from New York City to rural Kansas in order to investigate the brutal slaying of a small-town family by two killers (Daniel Craig and Lee Pace) for what would become Capote’s greatest literary triumph and most profound life experience.
From the start, it seemed that Infamous had its battles to fight. Not only did the filmmakers struggle in obtaining financing for an independent feature which required period costumes and sets, the task of finding an actor with enough skill who could convincingly portray one of the most influential and recognizable writers of the 20th century proved more difficult than first imagined. Compounding these obstacles was the appearance of Capote; another film in production at the same time (which was also facing similar issues) starring the more well-known Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Rather than solely write about the many ways Infamous differs from Capote, I thought it better to simply highlight its greatest strengths as its own film.
To begin with, Infamous does a stellar job illustrating the vast differences between the two worlds Capote found himself in. The chic, stylish world of late 50s New York is shown as an endlessly fun soiree with real-life figures such as Babe Paley and Diana Vreeland (Sigourney Weaver and Juliet Stevenson) populating the many lunches and cocktail parties which were a staple of Capote’s life and where he obtained his endless amounts of gossip.
By contrast, the world of Kansas is painted almost as a foreign land with its own set of rules. Scenes featuring cold townspeople and prejudiced officials show a world closed off to the outsider and to each other. Bleak and desolate with grim buildings and dead fields, Capote’s initial time spent in the small-town settings show the kind of rude awakening the author had to endure in order to tell the story of one of the darkest crimes of the era.
McGrath wisely chooses to split up sequences with Capote and Lee in both worlds, showing the wildly different mind frames the author constantly found himself in during the five-year process of writing In Cold Blood.
The writer/director takes the device even further with regards to the script which contains a surprisingly even amount of light and dark moments. For a story most would consider devoid of any humor whatsoever, Infamous offers up more than a few chuckles. The scene where Capote reacts to Perry Smith’s (Craig), one of the captured killers, proclamation of the author’s “unkind” writing, is priceless. “Imagine being told your work lacks kindness by a four-time killer,” Capote bewilderingly states. On the flip side, the emotional depth to which Capote becomes involved with Smith, and how damaged the overall experience left him, is handled with seriousness and grace.
While the extended cast, which also includes Jeff Daniels, Isabella Rossellini and Gwyneth Paltrow, doesn’t disappoint, its Craig, Bullock and Jones who leave the audience breathless.
Released shortly before his debut as James Bond, Craig is able to tap into Smith’s damaged psyche and the small-time criminal’s broken past which led him to death row. His warmth toward Capote and the human depths he explores make Infamous Craig’s finest turn to date.
As one of the most familiar personalities of his time, Capote is virtually brought back to life thanks to Jones’ stunning work. The actor impeccably nails Capote’s various mannerisms and inflections, but reaches even further to capture the author’s fears and insecurities in a way that Hoffman’s admirable performance didn’t. Having spent years playing character parts, here Jones is front and center and maintains more than enough power with which to carry the often-times weighty film.
For me though, it’s Bullock who proves to be the biggest revelation. Filmed and released during a time when the actress was trying to establish herself as more than just a rom-com star, Bullock bravely takes on one of the most mysterious figures in American history and literally loses herself in the famously reclusive author. Beyond sporting a credible southern accent, Bullock inhabits Lee’s sensibilities and intuition while delivering lines with a mixture of delicateness and ferocity not present in many of the actress’ past roles.
Unsurprisingly, Infamous was universally compared to the previous year’s Capote, with some critics divided as to which was actually the better film. Though many praised Jones, Bullock and Craig’s work, and the film overall was warmly, if unenthusiastically, lauded for its script structure and overall style, Infamous failed to even come close to repeating the success had by Capote. While I’m sure that McGrath and the producers of Infamous would have loved for their film to have taken the awards season by storm that year, there’s no doubt got to be some level of satisfaction in seeing a project with more than a couple of obstacles in its way soldier on to a more than respectable end.
