You'll forgive me if some reviews from this weekend are on the shorter side as, for some reason, it feels like December 4th is an optimal date for Hollywood to release their films to the public. Guess they'll never learn that the "all at once" approach is annoying and doesn't help anyone!
Mank is a film that any movie lover ought to watch out of curiosity alone. It pairs one of todays best directors (David Fincher) with one of today's greatest actors (Oldman) and actresses (Seyfried) and tells the story about how Citizen Kane - commonly held as one of the best movies of all time - was written.
So yeah, there's a lot to like here just even from the start. Unfortunately, I found that the film itself is a bit...disappointing? It's hard for me to present my opinion in a single sentence because there are both things I loved and things that felt annoying to me.
Before hopping straight to the review, I admit that I've never seen Citizen Kane (a black mark on my resume that I intend to fix at some point) but my honest guess is that it's not the best movie of all time. I imagine there's a weight of nostalgia that goes along with it and perhaps it's so highly regarded because it was ahead of its time, but I'd be surprised if I were to watch it in 2020 or 2021 and say "Wow, you know what? That is definitely the best movie of all time!". I bring that up because I think knowing some "movie buff" history about Citizen Kane and how it got made would help to enjoy this film further. That's trivia/knowledge that I lack, so as a side effect, Mank is far less interesting to me than I'm sure it is to more hardcore movie fans. This is an important distinction too because I'd venture to say that the majority of people on Netflix probably don't have the appropriate background knowledge for this either so...be forewarned.
Where Mank does tremendously well - and earns most of its points, in my book - is the style. It may look like a simple black and white production, but there's a lot of subtle nuances here that I found...well, nifty! The black and white itself is gorgeous, features wonderful cinematography and equally impressive editing. The nuances here are the small camera techniques for which I don't know their names, but are readily apparent in their "age" to transport us back to the 1930s. An easy example? Every so often, there will be a film "burn mark" (aka hole) that flashes on the screen for a brief moment. Given this is streaming through Netflix, it's a funny callback to things were on actual film vs/ digital 4K, but it's also just one of the small ways Mank feels like a film that transports you back. The original score is also one that transports you back as is the audio editing overall. Again, these are all subtle things that I imagine I'm doing a bad job explaining, but they add up once you recognize most of them.
Not surprisingly, all of the performances are top notch too, but especially Seyfried and Oldman. Others deserve praise, but each of those two steal the screen whenever they're on it and their shared scenes are playful and interesting to watch. Seyfried's version of Marion Davies is very much a smarter-than-she-looks story while Oldman's Mank is an annoying character due to alcoholism, but endearing in an odd way. 
Ahhh yes. I remember
these outfits being popular!
My concern with Mank, is something that often plagues these films about Hollywood: they're self indulgent and they also assume that everyone is in on the joke. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a good recent example, but what that film does better is both A) bringing the audience along and B) giving us entertaining moment-to-moment scenes, thanks in large part to DiCaprio and Pitt. With Mank, it felt like I got left in the dust; it felt like all the aforementioned knowledge and trivia about Citizen Kane is something I should have had before watching. It jumps around a lot (again, in really creative ways), but it also takes a long time to come together and I'm not sure it was the most effective way to tell the story. The script also makes it harder to understand what's going on. Designed to be grand and poetic and mimic the way people supposedly used to talk back then, what I found it did the most was make it hard to follow plot threads. There are many conversations about nothing but because we have Seyfried and Oldman delivering them, they feel important. It's a weird component to the movie because I actually enjoyed watching these performers deliver the words of the script, but I also can't help the feeling that I felt lost..
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| He wasn't the writer we deserved right now, but the one we needed. Beige in the darkness. The khaki knight |
CONS
- Hard to follow for a variety of reasons
- Feels a bit like an inside joke that you're either in on or you're not
- The grand, poetic script makes it hard to follow what conversations actually add to the plot
- As most films about Hollywood are, this one is self-indulgent. In ways that's fun, in other ways, it feeds into that top bullet
- Feels like you must have knowledge or interest in the subject matter
- The aesthetic and style are wonderful. There are a lot of big things driving this (i.e. cinematography, editing) but also a lot of smaller subtle ones (film techniques from the 30s)
- Fitting original score
- Everyone's performances are apt, but Oldman and Seyfried in particular are a joy to watch
- While the script is sometimes part of the film's issues, hearing people speak in this way is refreshing and fun
- Able to capture the time period in a fun and accurate way
I think if you'd seen Citizen Kane you would have enjoyed it more as there are various nods in terms of references, visual nods and characters. I really love it, mostly because Oldman was just so darn good as usual.
ReplyDeleteI need to watch CK eventually but this was a bit of a drag for me. I think it was a little too self indulgent. Oldman was fantastic though!
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