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Perils
of Fame HOLLYWOODLAND: Directed by Allen Coulter. Written by Paul Bernbaum. Cinematography, Jonathan Freeman. Music, Marcelo Zarvos. Starring Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Robin Tunney, Lois Smith and Bob Hoskins. Focus Features, 2006. R. 126 minutes. How odd that in one summer we get Superman in his newest live-action incarnation, in the underappreciated Superman Returns, and in his oldest: Hollywoodland explores the mystery surrounding the death of George Reeves (Ben Affleck), who played Superman on TV in the 1950s. Gliding back and forth between the time of Reeves' rise to fame and a fictionalized investigation of his death, Hollywoodland offers a peek into the mechanics of stardom, the perils of certain sorts of fame and the frustration of life not working out as expected.
It's with that last theme, the broadest of the bunch, that Hollywoodland falls short. The ups and downs of Hollywood are carefully depicted, from wealthy studio honchos to packed auditions, star-studded parties to last-ditch efforts at success. As shot by cinematographer Jonathan Freeman, Reeves' time is color-saturated, full of striking women, stunning dresses, immaculate cars and quaint houses — all the extravagance that Reeves is surrounded by but doesn't really have. Much of what the ambitious, discontented man does have comes from his lover, Toni (Diane Lane), the wife of MGM boss Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins). Her gifts come with limits, though: Toni buys Reeves a house, but she never helps him get a role. The life of private investigator Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), on the other hand, is washed out, the bleached yellow of a too-hot California day. Separated from his wife and son, Simo is living in a dumpy apartment complex and taking suspicious-husband spy jobs for cash. The Reeves case is at first just something the bigger detectives won't take on, but Simo gets predictably caught up in it, in part, perhaps, because his own son is distraught over Superman's death. Returning again and again to the Benedict Canyon house where Reeves' life ended, Simo imagines the possibilities: Maybe Reeves was killed by Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), Reeves' tart-tongued fiancée, for whom he left Toni. Maybe it was a hit man sent by Eddie Mannix in retaliation for Reeves' hurting his wife. Or maybe Reeves really did kill himself, burnt out and beaten down by the Hollywood game. Hollywoodland is in large part a mystery, but it's a necessarily ambiguous one. Director Allen Coulter doesn't hurry the story along for a great revelation because there simply isn't one to be had. Instead, the languidly paced film meanders through its iconic Hollywood setting, folding in subplots while leaving other matters hanging. Where it succeeds is in leaving room for standard characters — the dame, the star, the detective — to develop into flawed, sympathetic, frustrating people. Affleck's performance as Reeves is nearly a shock: The bland young hero from Daredevil and Pearl Harbor disappears as Affleck sinks into his character, becoming a thick-chested adult living with disappointment (if only they could have gotten him a better gray-streaked wig). Diane Lane does smoldering better than almost anyone; garbed in gorgeous costumes and speaking with precise enunciation, she could be a star from any era. Brody has the toughest job. Though he plays Simo as a man scrabbling to hold his life together, the character's emotional journey is too secondary to the film's main story to be effective. The mostly fictional Simo, who seems to have nothing, exists as a clever way to approach the story of a man who couldn't appreciate what he had. But when Reeves' story is over, it's Simo who must lead the film to its quiet close. Half cautionary tale about being blinded by desire, half detective yarn, Hollywoodland doesn't quite add up to a satisfying whole. |
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