TRUMBO: THREE STARS

BEFORE it was used as a neat Hollywood code word for the best unproduced screenplays of recent times, the Hollywood blacklist was an unfortunately negative place to be for anyone in the industry.

It meant that anyone deemed a Communist – or even a sympathiser thereof – was not allowed to work in the business. This led to some completing works under pseudonyms, even churning out future Hollywood classics such as Spartacus and Roman Holiday in the process.

Such was the case of the eponymous Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), the blacklisted screenwriter who was part of the “Hollywood Ten” in the 1940s and 1950s; who refused to co-operate before the United States Congress about possible Communist propaganda in their films and ending up unfairly imprisoned because of it.

The film explores his life and career with a particular focus on the nasty business, which at the time bred paranoia and misguided persecution, showing his relationships with fellow writers also caught in the crossfire to those within the system – studio execs, movie stars and gossip writers alike – that labelled them traitors.

Something of a diversion for its director Jay Roach – best known for silly comedies such as Meet the Parents and Austin Powers – Trumbo presents the man’s story in a somewhat messy and unfocused way.

This is down to it trying to tackle too many things at once, from complex industry and political ramifications of Trumbo’s actions to his domestic family drama.

The latter is particularly problematic, admirable in its attempt to give a rounded picture of a life but merely getting in the way of what really matters about the story.

It’s a much stronger film whenever we’re in the deep end of the Hollywood pool, such as in scenes where Trumbo and his newly appointed team of “black market writers” are churning out screenplays for the only low-rent studio still willing to work with them and, more importantly, happy to conceal their identities.

It’s Bryan Cranston that holds the film together by the sheer force of his Oscar-nominated performance.

In the hands of a lesser actor, it might have been nothing but a caricature, but Cranston imbues him with poignancy, sincerity and just the right kind of idiosyncrasy.

He towers over everything and everyone else with his magnetic presence, including Louis C.K. as Trumbo’s friend Arlen Hind – a solemn, composite character – who can’t get his head around Trumbo’s obsession with success and Helen Mirren as infamous Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, so content to stop Trumbo from ever working again.

The film doesn’t live up to the talents of the man it chronicles, never quite equipped to take on all that it sets out to do and thus never becoming the prestige film about Hollywood that it so clearly wants to be.

Yet it’s nevertheless an enjoyable, impassioned and empathetic portrait of a Hollywood figure whose struggles were wholly unnecessary but whose undeniable talents soldiered on.