It is no exaggeration to say that 2020 was a rough year for cinema. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to do my annual Sheist Awards but, with the Oscars getting pushed back, I had a bit more time to do my homework. As it turned out, I had already seen the majority of the Best Picture candidates. However, in the name of due diligence, I wanted to cover all my bases. While Mank benefits from an impeccable lead performance, it’s more handcuffed by its fetishizing of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” than it is enhanced by it.
Gary Oldman’s brilliance was basically the only thing that kept this film treading water for its two-hour 11-minute runtime. The cast was stacked and it certainly wasn’t the performances that weighed the movie down. To be fair, all of the primary performances were very good including those of Lily Collins, Amanda Seyfried, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Pelphrey, Arliss Howard, Tom Burke, Charles Dance, and Jamie McShane. However, if Oldman wasn’t the charismatic leading man, I don’t think this film would be held in nearly as high regard and certainly not in the conversation for Best Picture.
David Fincher rose to prominence as a feature director on the strength of his ability to cultivate tension and anticipation. While I don’t begrudge anybody for venturing outside their comfort zone, those very distinct and identifiable qualities were noticeably absent from Fincher’s foray into Hollywood’s history. I won’t deny it was well-acted (I’ve already highlighted that as its biggest strength) and the screenplay, by David’s father Jack, is loaded with plenty of robust dialogue. However, as much as it pains me to say it, the film was still mostly boring.
The story was, at least, partially interesting but it’s far from compelling on screen. Part of the problem for me was that it’s very insular in its self-aggrandizing of a particular piece of Hollywood’s past. The film is heavily dependent on its dialogue and some of that is used to draw some not-so-subtle political parallels, but it turns out that the entire subplot of the California Governor’s race was fictionalized for the sake of making a point (according to HistoryVsHollywood.com). There is also a huge amount of industry history built into the subtext of the dialogue that’s meant, seemingly, only for those who either lived it or studied it extensively. There are a lot of names and mentions thrown around as if the audience should already have some basic understanding, but it felt more exclusive than accessible. However, I could see the film getting good marks from those who know the history and/or lived it. It is, after all, aimed at Hollywood.
It’s more than a bit masturbatory in that way too. It’s a film about writing the screenplay for one of Hollywood’s most famous films, enmeshed in all the machinations of that era, and filmed as if it were one of the films from that time as well. It makes sense why Fincher wanted the movie in black & white, but shooting in digital B&W was a mistake. There was almost no depth to the shots, no contrast, and the overall visual impression bland and flat. That’s a particular shame because it’s easy to see how much effort Donald Graham Burt put into the production design and didn’t do any favors for the great costuming by Trish Summerville. I know that shooting on film is expensive but, if the idea was to embody the spirit of Citizen Kane, maybe digital wasn’t the way to go. The audio was recorded in mono too as part of the period authenticity they were trying to achieve, but it was a detriment to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ otherwise impressive score.
There have been other films in recent years that have attempted to stroke Tinseltown’s ego in an effort to elevate the project’s perception and, for the most part, it’s worked. However, I don’t think Mank is in the same category as some of those other films. Calling it a bad movie is probably unfair and ultimately inaccurate, but it’s not engaging in the way it needs to be for a so-called Best Picture candidate. It doesn’t make my personal list of the year’s best films and I would argue it wasn’t even Netflix’s best offering of the year. For what it’s worth, at about an hour in, I stopped it and then came back to finish it the following day.
Recommendation: If you plan on taking the time, see it for Oldman’s performance and the little piece of real behind-the-scenes history.