"Capote"

Walking into the theatre you might think you're about to see a famous writer's descent from fame into insanity and death. But you'd be wrong, but then again, you'd be right. "Capote" is a fantastic movie based on the few years immediately preceding his spectacular literary and social success but with all his personal weaknesses already in place and waiting to slowly kill him.

While Phillip Seymour Hoffman does not bear a tremendous likeness to Truman Capote, his ability to mimic Capote's highly idiosyncratic way of speaking, sort of a queeny brainiac, was astounding, accurate but not showy. If the voice hadn't of worked, the movie would have been on much shakier ground.

"Capote" is a movie of muted, washed out colors mixed with tightly edited scenes that don't waste anybody's time. This is not only the story of four murders in the Kansas farmland but also that of a man who, for all his Manhattan cocktail party sophistication, doesn't begin to understand himself until he sees his doppelganger sitting on Death Row.