Trumbo (2015)

Trumbo tells the story of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's roughly 12-year and ultimately successful battle against the Hollywood blacklist. Trumbo, who wrote the National Book Award winning novel Johnny Got His Gun, as well the screenplays for such movies as Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, was an avowed leftist and member of the communist party for five years (1943-1948), yet also a patriotic American who loved his country and served in World War II, albeit not in a combat role. By 1947 Trumbo had become the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, but that same year he and nine associates known collectively as 'The Hollywood Ten' were blacklisted from work in the movie industry for their refusal to 'name names' to the House Un-American Activates Committee, Trumbo himself even spent some time in prison for contempt of congress (technically a crime we are all guilty of, am I right?).

After coming out of prison Trumbo continued to work under pseudonyms and the names of friends, even winning two Oscars that way, for Roman Holiday in 1953 and The Brave One in 1956. Mostly though Trumbo wrote and doctored the scripts for various B and below movies, the most famous and best of which is probably Gun Crazy, which I recommend. Though working in secret, if something of an open one, the Trumbo's (because the whole family was involved really) had to give up a lot of luxuries they were used to be, but they stuck together and worked through it until in 1960, with the political climate sufficiently changed and the support of Hollywood heavyweights like Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger, Trumbo's name again could appear on film as the screenwriter of such blockbusters as Exodus and Spartacus. The blacklist was effectively over and Trumbo would continue to write films (including a personal favorite of mine Papilon) before dying of a heart attack at the age of 70 in 1976.

Bryan Cranston plays Dalton Trumbo, and its a great performance, he is going to at the very least be Oscar nominated for this (and if he wins will become only the second person to win an Oscar for playing an Oscar winner, after Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator). Trumbo was a man with a very distinct way of talking, a distinct look and a distinct bearing, Cranston captures all of this wonderfully, impressing me and giving me yet another reason to finally watch Breaking Bad. The large supporting cast is good and its hard to pick out just a few performances for comment, though Elle Fanning's and Louis C. K.'s are to me probably the most memorable. Though do any JAG fans want to comment on what they think about having David James Elliott play John Wayne?

Trumbo is a smart film about a smart writer, but the thing I appreciated most about it was that it was an optimistic film, and Trumbo an optimistic man, in the face of everything he was up against. It's just so pleasant to see something smartly written and positive, there's a lot of well written stuff out there, and a lot of positive stuff, but those two things don't overlap as much as I'd wish so it's really refreshing when they do. ***1/2