The near-simultaneous release of two movies on the same subject usually spells disaster for one of them.
Perhaps most famously, “Valmont” never recovered from being released shortly after “Dangerous Liaisons,” which told exactly the same story. It didn’t matter that Colin Firth and Annette Bening were just as good as Glenn Close and John Malkovich (and arguably more appropriately cast), or that “Valmont” had a more youthful, less calculated quality. What mattered was that this “instant remake” came too soon.
The same fate may befall writer-director Doug McGrath’s “Infamous,” which tells essentially the same story as Bennett Miller’s instant classic, “Capote.” Yet while there’s no question that Miller’s version is the stronger, more cinematic achievement, there’s much to enjoy in McGrath’s account of how Truman Capote came to write “In Cold Blood.”
British actor Toby Jones (Smee in “Finding Neverland”) may never replace Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning performance in Miller’s film, but he looks and sounds more like the real Capote. Physically he’s just a better match, and his acting cannot be faulted. He inhabits the role without straining.
The same could be said of Sandra Bullock, who helps to make Harper Lee a less passive character than she was in “Capote.” By emphasizing her gregarious nature and pragmatic qualities, she and McGrath demonstrate just how crucial Lee’s role was in the creation of “In Cold Blood.” At the same time, by emphasizing her disagreements with Capote over the conception of this “non-fiction novel,” the movie underlines her independence.
At times, the movies flatly contradict each other. In “Infamous,” Bennett Cerf (played by Peter Bogdanovich) replaces William Shawn (Bob Balaban) as the confidante who guides Capote through his most hellish moments. The homoerotic relationship between Capote and the murderous Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) is much more explicit, while the relationship between Capote and his longtime lover is downplayed.
“Infamous” often spells out what “Capote” merely suggested. Sometimes that doesn’t work — there’s an unnecessary sense of artifice in the early scenes — and sometimes it does. Craig’s Perry is both scarier and more vulnerable than Clifton Collins Jr.’s Perry in “Capote.” They’re both valid approaches to the part, but Craig (the new James Bond) can’t help being more magnetic.
As co-producer Christine Vachon reveals in her new book, “A Killer Life,” Julia Roberts nearly landed the Harper Lee role. That would probably have been disastrous, partly because Lee’s part would have been beefed up to take advantage of Roberts’ marquee value, yet there’s a trace of that emphasis in “Infamous.”
At film’s end, McGrath suggests that “In Cold Blood” not only ruined Capote’s career; it might have taken down Lee as well. She talks about writing a follow-up to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” yet, like Capote, she essentially ended her career with her most famous book.
“Infamous” is often funnier and livelier than “Capote,” especially when it’s expanding on the New York literary circle that nurtured Capote (Sigourney Weaver, Hope Davis and Juliet Stevenson are especially droll). But ultimately it’s just as sad.