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Staring: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins
Rated: R
“Citizen Kane” is often credited as the greatest movie ever made and Orson Welles is synonymous with it as its co-author, director, and star. However, “Mank” focuses on the other writer of this famous film: Herman J. Mankiewicz.
Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) was a New York journalist in the 30’s and 40’s who was hired to come to Hollywood to pen the first draft of the screenplay that was known at the time as “The American.” Soon after arriving in California he has a car accident and Mank is setup in a desert guesthouse to write the script. He is attended to by a German therapist and an English secretary to help heal him and make sure he gets the job done. Their job is difficult because Mankiewicz is a heavy smoker with a drinking problem.
The film has many themes. Certainly, the focus is the scriptwriting process and is told from the writer’s point of view as you see a typewriter pluck out section titles as each scene opens. However, Mank’s relationships with his wife, the women who are assisting him and his friends and enemies all play rolls. Also, key is the politics of Hollywood and the world at that time. MGM films, Louis B. Mayer, William Randolph Hearst, and Marion Davies and WWII are all woven into the story. At times, the movie seems confusing because it uses many flashback scenes to provide background information and it was difficult to keep track of what period was being shown. However, the acting and visuals are captivating and held my attention.
David Fincher (the author and director) beautifully crafted each scene in the style of the original “Citizen Kane”. Filmed in black and white, the sets, costumes and score are very realistic for the era and he even used the old devise of little white dots that would flash that were embedded in the film that were a signal to the film operator that it was time to load the next reel of film to projector.
Mank is a film for movie lovers. It does not have car chases or sexy scenes to hold attention. It will probably never make the big box-office number movies like “Titanic” or “Star Wars” did, but it is a beautifully made movie about a man who was a gifted writer and what motivated him.