Mank leaves its mark as a masterpiece in monochrome
Mank (13+, 132 mins) Directed by David Fincher Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★★
David Fincher’s first movie in six years has been well worth the wait. Having previously come up trumps with detailed and grippingly dramatic looks at San Francisco serial killer Zodiac and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (The Social Network),
the now 58-year-old film-maker may have topped them both with this audaciously told look at 1930s Hollywood’s ‘‘court jester’’ Herman J ‘‘Mank’’ Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman).
While ostensibly focused on his commissioning to write the screenplay for radio and theatre wunderkind Orson Welles’ feature film debut (a little movie eventually called Citizen Kane), it actually covers a much wider canvas than that.
Through cleverly integrated Kane-esque flashbacks, we learn much about the hierarchy of Tinseltown’s studio system, Mank’s encounters with those who would be barely fictionalised into key Kane
characters and the political pulling power of people like newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and MGM boss Louis B Mayer (Arliss Howard). It’s that last area that will really resonate with audiences.
As that duo and their Republican cohorts sense potential California Governor electoral defeat at the hands of a Democratbacked author Upton Sinclair, they mobilise their combined forces to control the supply of information.
‘‘Hollywood can make you believe King Kong is 40 storeys tall and Mary Pickford’s still a virgin at 40, so convincing people not to vote for Sinclair shouldn’t be a problem,’’ Mank muses, while they rage against what they perceive to be Sinclair’s brand of ‘‘socialism’’. In some ways, Fincher’s Mank feels like the perfect appetiser to David Simon’s The Plot Against America series (currently available to view on Neon).
Using a script created by his late father Jack in the late 1990s (he originally planned to film it between The Game and Fight Club), Fincher also weaves in many visual and aural Kane allusions.
Shot completely in lustrous, crisp monochrome (or, if you prefer, black and white), scenes of a bedridden Mank because of a recent car accident being tended to echo Welles’ film’s opening moments, and the sound mix is all on one track, just as it would have been in the 1940s.
If all that doesn’t draw you into Fincher’s world, then there are the performances. Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!) is a revelation (and nearly unrecognisable) as the much-maligned actress, Hearst’s ‘‘blonde Betty Boop’’ and alleged ‘‘Rosebud’’ inspiration Marion Davies, and Lily Collins is so fabulous as Mank’s typist, confident and clairvoyant dictation expert Rita Alexander it makes you almost forget her tragic turn in Emily in Paris.
Dance (Game of Thrones)
delivers another of his now trademark smarmy menaces as Hearst, Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey: The Movie) is excellent as Mank’s long-suffering wife ‘‘Poor’’ Sara, and Tom Burke gets THAT voice spot on in playing Welles.
But truly, this is about Oldman. Even more so than in Darkest Hour, he delivers a powerhouse performance filled with memorable moments, many shades and plenty of pithy one-liners.
‘‘Are you ever serious?’’ his Mank is asked. ‘‘Only when something is funny.’’
The movie his character helped make is undoubtedly one of the greatest of all time.
‘‘It’s Lear, it’s the dark night of the soul. I never thought one could care so much for a sled,’’ enthuses his handler John Houseman (Sam Troughton) after reading the script.
The film Oldman is starring in might just end up being the frontrunner for next year’s Covidaffected Oscars, as well as another one people will still be talking about in 80 years’ time.
‘‘You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours. All you can hope is to leave the impression of one,’’ Mank says of biopics. Well, this one leaves one hell of a mark.
Mank is screening in select cinemas and is streaming on Netflix now.