Trumbo
Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane
Directed by Jay Roach
Hollywood and the Cold War collide in Jay Roach’s new tale of famed American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted in the late ‘40s for his involvement with the Communist Party. Trumbo was part of the ‘Hollywood 10,’ a group of peers who denounced McCarthyism, and refused to testify in front of the US House of Representatives and were eventually jailed.
Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, shedding any resemblance to his gritty Walter White, takes the lead and essentially elevates an otherwise pedestrian film. Surrounded by a cast of convincing actors, including Diane Lane (Trumbo’s wife), John Goodman (film producer Frank King), Helen Mirren (gossip columnist Hedda Hopper), and Michael Stuhlbarg (actor Edward G. Robinson), Trumbo’s storytelling is basic but succinct and its characters are thin but entertaining. It’s Cranston’s amiable and flamboyant performance that serves to elevate the sometimes trashy material.
The film moves breezily enough and is full of other noteworthy performances; Canadian David James Elliott’s John Wayne and Dean O'Gorman’s Kirk Douglas are particularly cartoonish yet fun to watch. Visually, Jim Denault’s crisp cinematography lends itself well to the glossy material and Roach often strives for realism with an assortment of newsreel clips interspersed throughout the story, serving to remind us all this actually happened.
Unfortunately, John McNamara’s trite script doesn’t always convey the film’s stirring themes like the superior Good Night, and Good Luck. The irony of a movie about Hollywood screenwriting lacking finesse in that department aside, Trumbo serves as a showcase for Cranston’s undeniable versatility.
