Sometimes not every picture tells a story

LIFE chronicles the backstory behind the 1955 photo spread that brought James Dean to the attention of the US public, just seven months before his death, aged 24.

DeHaan as Dean and Pattinson as Dennis Stock, the Magnum Photos freelancer whose professional horizons opened when he spotted the actor’s raw charisma, often seem to be in different films, stranded by a script and direction that fail to make a convincing case for the central characters’ symbiosis.

Problems start with DeHaan’s take on Dean, which seems more studied than inhabited, from the hunched shoulders and drowsy eyes to the sleepy-cool mumble. From Dean’s first appearance, the characterisation struggles to avoid the trap of impersonation.

The script is by Luke Davies, who begins the story when Dean is under consideration for the lead in Rebel Without a Cause. Stock meets the brooding loner at a party at the Chateau Marmont; he lands an invitation to an advance screening of Dean’s first major film, East of Eden, which Warner is preparing to release.

Despite James still being relatively unknown, Dennis persuades his picture editor John Morris (Edgerton) to pitch a next-big-thing spread on the actor to LIFE to coincide with the East of Eden premiere. But James gets cagey about participation as he runs afoul of the studio publicity machine and Warner use threats to try to rein him in.

Pattinson gives the most rounded performance here, even if the character is inconsistently drawn. The photographer’s challenges seem as much due to his own insecurities as to the subject’s flakiness.

The photos, when finally recreated, are anticlimactic. There’s a mild thrill of popcultural significance in watching while a discouraged Stock suddenly realises something magical is happening as Dean strolls through Times Square smoking a cigarette, with his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets and his collar turned up against the rain in what would become one of the defining images of the actor. Others occur without any real sense of momentousness.

One absolute gem that’s represented only in the end credits is the famous picture of Dean resting a hand on a huge hog, leaving Kingsley unchallenged as this wan movie’s prize ham. – The Hollywood Reporter