Hollywoodland Starring Ben Affleck and Adrien Brody
Hollywoodland tells two stories (this would be its first problem) that of a struggling private detective, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) and that of George Reeves (Ben Affleck), television’s Superman who has recently found dead under somewhat suspicious circumstances; Simo is investigating the apparent suicide as a murder to boost his own career.
Reeves’s story is by far the more compelling of Hollywoodland, in part because of the element of mystery that surrounds the character (Was he depressed enough to kill himself? Who in his life was actually on his side?), in part because he, a luminous everyman struggling to be something more than that, is the sort of character we’d prefer to identify with (over the ill-tempered, chain-smoking Simo who’s separated from his wife and young son), and in part because of Affleck’s amazing performance.
As has been widely noted, Affleck gained quite a bit of weight for Hollywoodland. While this sort of thing tends to get more attention than it should (actors making themselves “less attractive) the truth is, I’ve never seen Affleck look more handsome (he certainly never caught my eye before) and his portrayal of a wannabe star lost in 1950s Hollywood is tender and charming and well captures the layers of someone who desperately wants to be a loved public person because they feel as if they are an unloved private person.
While Adrien Brody’s performance as Simo is no less nuanced, the role unfortunately is. Created largely as a device to tell Reeves’ story (which comes to us in flashback and hypothesis, often, regrettably, not clearly delineated), Simon isn’t particularly fleshed out. Is he an alcoholic or does he just have one very stupid moment with alcohol? Is he a cad or someone just not very good at relationships? We don’t kow, because the scrpt doesn’t tell us, which makes it hard to sympathize with his pain or really understand where the depth of Brody’s portrayal of it is coming from.
Other excellent performances come to us from Jessica Lange as Reeves’ long-time mistress, and Bob Hoskins as her husband.
Ultimately, despite pretending to be a murder mystery, Hollywoodland is not a thriller. No determination is ever made in the matter of the murder/suicide nor are any particularly tawdry secrets ever revealed about Reeves (despite repeated misdirects and various film noir tropes that amount to absolutely nothing). Hollywoodland finally decides it is about the deathof childhood by juxtaposing Simo watching a home movie of his son with the video Reeves shot to prove that he was fit enough to be a pro-wrestler.
Hollywoodland is a sad film that stays with you, but its emotional impact is only in its concepts, the script having betrayed the excellent performances of its actors.
