Look! Up on the screen! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
Better still, it’s an actor who has found a way to intrigue us again. Or if you’ve never been sold on Ben Affleck, then “Hollywoodland” is a fine place to make his acquaintance.
In this atmospheric mystery – was it suicide or murder? – Affleck plies the alchemy of the personal and professional to conjure a portrait of an actor whose entanglements help, then hamper, then destroy him.
And who better than a man once known by the moniker “Benifer” to tussle with the tribulations of a Tinseltown star who becomes vulnerable to his public’s demands with nothing but his own decisions to blame?
Affleck stands in the shoes of George Reeves, who in 1951 donned the tights of television’s Superman.
“The Adventures of Superman” ran from 1952 until 1958. Reeves died in 1959. His death, from a gunshot to the head, was ruled a suicide. Even now, doubts remain. “Hollywoodland” does a compelling job of teasing those doubts into a rumination about Lalaland and celebrity.
MGM movie exec Eddie Mannix’s wife recognizes a kindred spirit when she sees Reeves working his way into nightlife coverage in a star-studded restaurant. Like Reeves, who played one of Scarlett’s early suitors in “Gone With the Wind,” Toni Mannix looks like she should be more famous than she is.
Like other Hollywood couples over the decades, Toni (Diane Lane) and Eddie (Bob Hoskins) have an understanding about their affairs. (Once Reeves is dead, Eddie Mannix’s past become more ominous.)
Louis Simo is an L.A. private eye who – on a good day – picks up the discards of detective agencies. His more gainfully employed colleagues dress like insurance salesmen. A disheveled hipster, Simo looks like someone auditioning for the role of B-movie gumshoe.
Played by Adrien Brody, Simo is all angles, from his unique mug to the way he works cases. When we first meet him, Simo’s No. 1 client is a suspicious hubby. No matter the non-evidence, the man insists his wife is cheating on him. Simo knows the case is closed and his client’s a nutjob. This doesn’t keep him from accepting the retainer fee.
Other PIs keep their cases and clients out of the papers. Simo plants the seeds of tabloid tales. The character is unscrupulous, though Brody’s hangdog manner keep him this side of unlikable.
In the noir tradition of Chandler and Hammett, little in “Hollywoodland” is what it appears. Is Reeves’ mother as devoted as she seems? What about Leonora, Reeves’ fiancée?
First-time feature director Allen Coulter (“The Sopranos”) and writer Paul Bernbaum impress as they work the story’s many angles.
There’s palpable poignance and frustration in Toni and George’s love affair. And “Hollywoodland” exhibits a wise sensitivity to the effects of pop culture and celebrity on the consumers and the consumed.
Sure, Simo enjoys high-profile cases, but he becomes emotionally tethered to Reeves’ death by his young son’s heartbreak. Adding one more twist to a story laced with conflicting emotional ties, the movie occasionally visits Simo’s estranged wife (Molly Parker) and frustrated son.
At one of those in-costume appearances Reeves so disliked, a junior gunslinger approaches the superhero. Affleck moves from indulgent bonhomie to fright. It’s as sad – and true – an encounter as it is tense.
While we fear for a child confusing reality and TV, the sight of Reeves being condemned to an unreal world stings most.
Noir may traffic in death, but it’s looking like a genre that will never expire. “Hollywoodland” will remind you of other, more iconic noirs, “Chinatown” chief among them. But with its portrait of attraction and disolution there’s more than a bit of Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place,” a film freighted with sorrow.
Is Affleck’s performance golden in the awards sense? Who knows. But he’s tempered his “man of steel” with hurt, cockiness and the faltering hopes of an actor who aspired to more.
Before going up to bed the night of his death, Reeves strums a guitar and sings for the stragglers at a waning party. It’s a lovely, aching moment. And we surely appreciate his serenade more than Leonora and her friends.
Strumming the guitar, Reeves is no Superman. But he nevertheless carries the weight of the world on his slumping shoulders.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
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| “Hollywoodland”
R for language, some violence and sexual content|1 hour, 26 minutes|NOIR |Directed by Allen Coulter; written by Paul Bernbaum; photography by Jonathan Freeman; starring Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins, Robin Tunney|Opens today at area theaters
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Bankable Ben
Love him or hate him, Ben Affleck has become a very bankable star. As his latest, “Hollywoodland,” opens today, here’s a look at his top five movies (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions unless otherwise noted):
1. Armageddon $201.6 / $36.1, 1998
2. Pearl Harbor $198.5 / $59.1, 2001
3. Good Will Hunting $138.4 / $272,912, 1997
4. The Sum of All Fears $119 / $31.2, 2002
5. Daredevil $102.5 / $40.3, 2003
BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM
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