Hollywoodland

“Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown.” – final line from Chinatown (1974)

My dad was seven when his generation’s beloved caped hero died. George Reeves, star of the cancelled hit show The Adventures of Superman, was found with a bullet in his head on June 16th, 1959. It was a crushing blow to the show’s young fans, including my father, who had believed in the myth that Superman perished by losing his superpowers after jumping out a window. If only life were as simple as fantasy. Television director Allen Coulter’s feature debut, bearing the former name of California’s tinsel town, resurrects this oft-forgotten tragedy, and asks if there was the possibility of conspiracy behind it all.

In the first shot of this leisurely absorbing film noir, the camera drifts through a cloudy gray sky like the depressed hero of this summer’s dismal Superman Returns. Reeves is dead, and his mother Helen (Lois Smith) won’t accept the popular claim that her son’s death was a simple suicide. Enter private detective Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), whose marriage is a shambles, and his current relationship is distant at best. As he learns of Reeves’s affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), wife of a powerful studio executive at MGM (Bob Hoskins), Louis finds himself slowly being drawn to solving this mystery’s illusive puzzle. Yet the more pieces he finds, the less they fit together.

Yes, show business has always been the second-favorite home to conspiracy thrillers (the first is still the White House). Coulter’s film even uses that tired verbal promise of contemporary thrillers, “things aren’t what they seem.” And even though it doesn’t come close to packing the punch of its supposed inspirations, Chinatown and L.A. Confidential (1997), Hollywoodland still manages to sustain audience interest. Apart from its bleak shadows, gritty characters, and colorful dialogue like, “He’s a catfish…go clean the mud out of your whiskers”, the story sidesteps most noir clichés by grounding its story in unstylish, if nostalgic, reality.

The casting of Ben Affleck in the role of Reeves is ingenious, not in a physical context (he looks nothing like the deceased actor), but in a purely emotional one. As Gone With the Wind (1939) was Reeves’s debut, the Oscar-winner Good Will Hunting (1997) was co-writer/star Affleck’s ticket to superstardom, from which followed a series of embarrassments (Pearl Harbor, Gigli, etc). The washed-up Reeves found an undesirable comeback by being branded a kiddie matinee idol, while Affleck’s critical and financial failures have made him the punch-line of late-night hecklers. Superman fans laughed Reeves off the screen in From Here to Eternity (1953), and with the exception of Changing Lanes (2002), Affleck also hasn’t been given an adequate chance to show much range as an actor. His work as Reeves seems like less of a performance, and more a raw channeling of his own professional desperation and personal insecurity. Whatever the case, its Affleck’s best work to date, and he’s surrounded by a mostly strong ensemble.

The usually terrific Lane occasionally overacts as the trophy wife of Hoskins’s studio mogul, the type of gruff cigar-chomper whose voice not only scrapes gravel – it is gravel. His observation about Gone With the Wind is simply, “That pitcher made money!” Robin Tunney hits some darkly amusing notes as Reeves’s moody fiancé, while Brody is exquisitely good, with his eternally tormented eyes now holding a glimmer of skeptical cockiness. His character’s story is juxtaposed with that of Reeves, and they occasionally reflect one another. One major difference between them is that while Brody repeatedly fails to connect with his young son, Affleck is constantly followed by hoards of adoring little fans. There’s a chilling moment when one kid holds Reeves at gunpoint, to see if he really can dodge speeding bullets.

Yet that scene doesn’t pay off, and not much else in this film does either. I guess it’s not supposed to. Although we are given a few theoretical versions of the central killing, the movie remains honest in its open-ended finale. With measured pacing, an inconclusive plot, and a tone that’s closer to mourning than brooding, Coulter has made a film that ultimately wants to provoke discussion about the mystery that lies at its troubled core. If there is any certainty in the film’s final fade-out, it’s that Reeves fell victim to a town in which there was no truth or justice, just a corrupt system masquerading as the American way. Forget it, Louis. It’s Hollywoodland.

Rating: *** (out of *****)