Trumbo
Director: Jay Roach
Talent: Brian Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K.
Release Date: 5th February 2016
Dalton Trumbo (Cranston), one of the ‘Hollywood Ten’ blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee for affiliation with the Communist Party in 1947, was nevertheless one of the great screenwriters of his time, pseudonymously winning Academy Awards while officially denied the right to work for over a decade under the fascism of the McCarthy era. Roach’s film is no masterpiece of scripting itself, seeming almost robotically by-the-numbers as a biopic at times and elevated only by Cranston’s central performance, but it is the film’s depiction of the politics of its era that deserves special plaudits. McCarthyism too often seems like a faraway, distant dream, but a mere 60 years ago in the USA people were being imprisoned without trial for left-wing political views, or even the suspicion of same. Trumbo, to its credit, finds no easy heroics and largely spares the platitudes within this difficult historical context, but accomplishes the rare feat of finding credible familial pathos in this unfamiliar tale.
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
