Thursday, 18 February 2021

VOD: Mank (dir; David Fincher, 2020)


"Who was that again?"
"Just a writer."

David Fincher's long-gestating project  - from his late father's script - about the Golden Age of Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he battles his raging alcoholism and the writing of  Citizen Kane is an astonishingly accomplished film.  There is so much to enjoy, from the sumptuous recreation of the 1930s to the gloriously crisp black-and-white cinematography, the cinema-sounding acoustics, the razor-sharp dialogue, a superb music score from (unexpectedly) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the fictionalised characters and situations from the Hollywood of that time, and most of all another utterly towering performance by Gary Oldman (with superb support from possibly career-best Amanda Seyfried and Charles Dance) and relentlessly pitch-perfect direction from Fincher.  Mank is simply one of those very few films that come along every year that you can simply revel in, and it will make inevitable appearances in awards season.

 

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