Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Allen Coulter
Cast :
Adrien Brody……….Louis Simo
Diane Lane……….Toni Mannix
Ben Affleck……….George Reeves
Bob Hoskins……….Eddie Mannix
Robin Tunney……….Leonore Lemmon
Ben Affleck has been in a state of flux as of late. Known more for his headlines in the tabloids than any recent work in the cinema, the young hungry actor who took as much work as he could from Armageddon to Changing Lanes has transitioned into a different actor. Affleck as of late has been taking roles as various media executives who need to learn about life, as roles in bad movies like Surviving Christmas and Jersey Girl have taken him from being a great actor who draws in crowds to being just another face in a crowded field. Being a celebrity, it seems, has become almost as important as the reason for his becoming one: his ability to be a great actor. Affleck takes a step in the direction away from the formulaic roles of the last three years as the original “Man of Steel” in Hollywoodland.
Affleck isn’t Superman per se; he stars as the man who first played him in the television series, George Reeves. Reeves’ apparent suicide in June 1959 has been something conspiracy theories are made for. Three theorems have always been posited about his death. The film explores all three options, finishing with no conclusion as to which one the film maker endorses. It’s all explored through the eyes of Private Investigator Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), a man in a bad place in need of redemption.
The first theory is the accepted one: that Reeves did end up killing himself. As it goes Reeves was very despondent about his failing career and typecasting from being Superman. He had always imagined himself to be more like Clark Gable than Clark Kent. The second one is that his fiancée Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney) pulled the trigger and staged it to be a suicide. Rumors abounded that the pending nuptials had been called off by Reeves and that she was none too happy. The third and final theory was that Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), whose wife (Diane Lane) had an affair with Reeves, hired someone to kill Reeves and make it look like an accident in some sort of revenge scenario for having hurt his wife.
The film resembles Auto Focus in many ways, as both dealt with men whose deaths have left much speculation as Bob Crane’s demise has been the focus of as much debate as Reeves’ death has had. Both films present the lives of their stars in flashback mode, pulling together parts of the story from the past as a death is explored in the present. And they both don’t draw any conclusions about the death of the TV star upon whom they focus on, either, as all three scenarios are presented but none endorsed.
And that’s the inherent problem with Hollywoodland is that Simo does all of this exploration into the death of George Reeves and comes out with no conclusions, as all three scenarios are presented but no conclusions are reached. It leaves an empty feeling at the end as the final credits roll, as there’s a great mystery lined up to be solved but no one to solve it.
It takes away a lot from the film that it has going already, as it has a terrific cast to start with and a mostly strong script. The film focuses on Affleck, Lane and Brody in two different storylines that run together. Half of the film revolves around Reeves and his rise and fall in Hollywood. After meeting with and starting a relationship with the wife of a studio head, he dons the tights not knowing how the show would take off. As his life moves forward his career stalls, as the popularity of being Superman eliminates his ability to do anything but be a man in tights. As Simo sifts through the wreckage of Reeves career, we get to see a tortured sad existence that Superman gave Reeves. He wanted to be like Bogart, a leading man, and in the end was reduced to being more famous for his death than he was for his life.
