Running Time: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Clint Eastwood
Quick Impressions:
As a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting, Clint Eastwood’s directing, I’ve been very excited to see this movie. As I watched the film, I thought, The pacing is very strange, and the story seems a little unfocused. By the time the movie was over, I had to admit that it has serious flaws. Nevertheless, I am still thinking about this movie several days later.
What sticks with me most about the film is the notion that J. Edgar Hoover remained in a position of such incredible power for nearly fifty years despite the fact that nobody particularly liked him and several people probably hated him. That puzzle alone is quite compelling enough to capture the imagination.
The Good:
Leonardo DiCaprio gives a magnificent performance as J. Edgar Hoover. By the end of the movie, you accept him as Hoover and forget that he’s acting. Possibly this success comes in part because Hoover himself is a figure more often talked about than seen by the public. It’s not like DiCaprio has lots of news footage and other people’s performances to compete with. Still, the performance is incredible.
DiCaprio plays Hoover as an unsympathetic odd-ball who is easy to dislike yet manages to make the audience like him and trust him enough to continue to side with him even though the film reveals on several occasions that he often lies.
DiCaprio also has wonderful chemistry with Armie Hammer, who himself gives a nomination worthy performance as Agent Clyde Tolson. Every second the two of them share the screen is riveting, regardless of what else is (or, more often, isn’t) happening.
As someone who’s fascinated by the Lindbergh kidnapping, I also appreciated the story’s focus on that incident. Even though I’ve read a lot about the crime, I never realized just how much the kidnapping and subsequent Lindbergh Law did to strengthen the FBI until watching J. Edgar.
The four central characters are strong and well-acted. DiCaprio and Hammer are brilliant and should both get Oscar nominations. Naomi Watts makes Edgar’s loyal, long-term private secretary Helen Gandy easily the most sympathetic character in the movie. (At least, the script suggests no motive for disliking her. She’s the least complicated person in the story but still feels three-dimensional.) And Judi Dench plays Edgar’s gracefully overbearing mother as a well-meaning but enormously flawed matriarch who’s more than a little creepy in her disturbingly possessive and controlling love for her successful son.
The supporting cast is markedly less good, with the exception of Josh Lucas who plays Charles Lindbergh with subtle strength. I also liked Stephen Root and Damon Herriman as Arthur Koehler and Bruno Hauptmann, respectively.
What the movie is trying to say is a bit up in the air, as far as I’m concerned. Possibly, too, Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black are trying to convey two entirely distinct messages. Regardless of intent, however, the movie does say a great deal and certainly provides thought-provoking material enough to yield any number of post viewing discussions.
Most Oscar-worthy Moment (Leonardo DiCaprio):
Anyone who knows anything about J. Edgar Hoover is probably watching this movie waiting to see if he appears in drag. But DiCaprio’s Hoover seems to pride himself on dressing and behaving in a manly fashion. When he finally does put on a dress, the moment is powerful and not a bit prurient.
Granted, the film in general seems a bit heavy handed, beating viewers over the head with the Freudian notion that Edgar’s overbearing mother acts as his hypervigilant superego, constantly watching him and scrutinizing his morals, while Edgar himself internalizes this force and in a somewhat tortured way watches and scrutinizes he morals of others.
But the scene in which the grieving Edgar puts on his mother’s dress and beads works in spite of this somewhat heavy-handed groundwork. It doesn’t feel contrived. When Edgar feebly imitates his mother, then breaks her beads and falls to the ground sobbing, he doesn’t seem like someone following the dictates of a movie determined to present this Freudian take on Hoover. He is a person in pain, and we believe that pain. DiCaprio’s performance brings a realism to the moment that makes the scene transcend the movie’s less elegant set-up.
This moment of raw emotion from DiCaprio works particularly well because his Hoover has shown such drastic restraint up to that point. The character isn’t outwardly emotional, but the moment is. One of DiCaprio’s strengths as an actor is in expressing vulnerability and strong emotion, but here his emotional intensity has a difference quality than what he has shown in much of his previous work.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Armie Hammer):
Clyde Tolson spends most of the movie smiling knowingly. He’s very pretty, and pretty smug, and the chemistry between him and DiCaprio’s Hoover is immediately apparent though the nature of the relationship remains constantly in question, generating a tension that surpasses any suspense built by the events in the film.
Even when he’s just hanging around smiling, Armie Hammer gives a pretty compelling performance. But when Tolson breaks down during a weekend at the races, the performance becomes great. Hammer makes Tolson’s pain palpable. The fact that he articulates it through violence rather than language only strengthens the intensity of the scene. His struggle with DiCaprio in their hotel room quickly becomes both the most exciting and most memorable part of the movie.
Hammer also does a lovely job as the older Tolson. His make-up is a little strange. Instead of simply looking older, he appears to have been embalmed in very-liver spotted human skin. But his performance is marvelous, particularly at the moment when he discovers Hoover’s body.
Best Action Sequence:
Don’t go to this movie expecting an action blockbuster. For a film about the growing power of the FBI (including the right to carry weapons and the power to make arrests), this film features staggeringly little action. Still, the early scenes focusing on the bombing of Mitchell Palmer’s house are beyond exciting. Judging by the gasps in the theater, I’d say the execution of the bombing made some people jump.
Best Scene:
One of the most interesting moments in the movie occurs early on when Edgar proposes to Helen Gandy in the Library of Congress. Besides reminding me eerily of an ex-boyfriend, this strange choice reveals much about Edgar’s character and also lends insight to the motives behind Helen’s unflagging loyalty.
Best Surprise:
Something Clyde says to Edgar near the very end of the movie comes as a slight surprise, one that forces viewers to reevaluate some of the things they have seen earlier. This moment also causes us to remember that we’ve been watching a movie the entire time and that even this revelatory scene has been manufactured for our benefit. Like Hoover himself, we don’t know whom to trust and begin to feel that we can’t trust anyone.
The Negatives:
Some of the supporting performances in this film feel strange, inadequate, and even hammy. Jeffrey Donovan is conspicuously awful as Robert Kennedy. (He also turned in a strange performance in Changeling, leading me to wonder just what it is about him that Eastwood likes so much.) The notable world leaders always come across best when they remain unseen or are played by themselves in news footage.
The main problem with this movie is the pacing, and it’s a rather large problem. The film progresses slowly, and it feels even slower than it is because we’re not given a clear idea of the movie’s scope, focus, or overall intent. The material about the Lindbergh kidnapping ultimately takes up the most significant chunk of screentime, and Edgar’s strange, strained relationship with this mother and subsequently frustrated love affair with Tolson dominate the entire film, although Hoover’s personal problems get no real resolution or closure.
What is this movie about? I think many viewers begin the movie with that question in mind and leave the theater still asking the same question. Perhaps the movie forces us to imitate Hoover. We’re given so much information, some of it highly personal, and then left on our own to make sense of it all without any allies we can trust for feedback.
We think we’re watching a movie about Hoover’s political career, but at the end, we’re left with a moment curiously evocative of the final scene of Brokeback Mountain. Has this been a love story the entire time? If we’ve seen the film based on Hoover’s embroidered and altered reflections of his career (as Tolson’s remarks suggest), then have we also seen a version of the Hoover/Tolson relationship censored by the tormented Hoover?
Why have we been sitting in this movie theater for almost two and a half hours? The movie gives us all a lot to talk about, but what exactly is it trying to say? What does J. Edgar Hoover’s personal life have to do with the gruesome skeleton of a dead, kidnapped child? The over-the-top mother/child relationship dominating the film strongly suggests, “Something!”
Overall:
Eastwood has made better films. So has DiCaprio. But I’ve never seen a better film about J. Edgar Hoover. History buffs in particular should find this film fascinating, and even though it isn’t perfect, it’s worth watching for the powerful performances by both Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw it.