Biopics might be one of the most common movie genres around (particularly during awards season), but it’s also oddly one of the most difficult genres to get right. Boiling down the life of someone compelling and complicated enough to justify a movie into two hours is a near impossible task. Few do it right, yet the movies keep coming out every year like clockwork because audiences seem to have a perverse fascination with seeing movie stars pile on latex to look like a different celebrity. This week we’re treated to Leonardo DiCaprio in thick layers of rubbery make up portraying controversial FBI figurehead J. Edgar Hoover. Given that the man was known for pioneering fingerprinting, reinventing the FBI, investigating the Lindbergh baby, blackmailing politicians, and wearing a dress from time to time, there’s obviously plenty of material worth exploring. Unfortunately director Clint Eastwood attempts to cram it all in at once and created a movie where a lot of stuff happens that offers little insight. It’s so calculated to garner awards that I’m sure it’ll pick up a few nominations, but considering the potential of the material, J. Edgar can’t be considered anything other than a disappointment.
Perhaps the biggest error the filmmakers made when mounting J. Edgar was to try and simplify his personality down to one defining trait/flaw. That’s common biopic stuff and here the culprit is a cliché of the genre: an overbearing mother. Judy Dench appears as the mother in question with her stern old woman ways instilling an intense drive, work ethic, and fear of sexuality (particularly of the man on man variety) that seems to define all of J. Edgar Hoover’s strengths and flaws. It’s an irritatingly simplistic reduction of a complex man and given that cross-dressing inevitably pops up in the narrative, it raises some awkward parallels to Norman Bates’ relationship with his mother in Psycho. Obviously Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) needed something to connect all the disparate elements of Hoover’s story together, but this is far too simplistic.
So, with “mommy issues” as the binding element, the film plays out of sequence to cram in as much of Hoover’s life as possible. We see both a fat suit sporting DiCaprio as Hoover in his 70s during the character’s troubled later years with endless flashbacks to the early as the man both dictates his autobiography and looks out the window pensively to think about the darker, more secret moments of his life while dramatic music swells. Young twentysomething Hoover is a driven idealist who refashions the FBI in his own hardworking overeducated image and invents forensic investigations. Then we see the guy go mad with power, obsessively record friends and rivals to blackmail himself into an endless term as the head of the FBI. So, it’s a tale of two Hoovers: the groundbreaking youngster and the nutball paranoid old man. Unfortunately Eastwood seems to lack the conviction to allow his protagonist to be truly unlikable in the later years. We’re actually supposed to care that his endless backlog of secret files and recordings are destroyed after his death, even though the shady politics the represented should have been exposed.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film isn’t even intentional. Through telling the story in this awkward manner, the film reveals just how conservative and sheltered Clint Eastwood has become. Hoover may have been a groundbreaking lawman, but he was also a disturbingly secretive dirty pool playing politician, yet Eastwood doesn’t reallyexplore that. Even more frustrating is how Eastwood handles the supposed heart of the film. Hoover never wed, but did spend every working day, meal, and holiday with his assistant/confidant Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), who was later buried nearby in the same cemetery as his boss. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they were in love, but that was kept under wraps by a man with the power to ensure no dirty secrets could be released. Tolson is a major character in the film and their “love” story gives the biopic a heart, yet their love remains unrequited for the entire film. It’s as if Eastwood wanted to include the homosexual love plot for the critical prestige, but was unwilling to actually film any actual gay material for his movie. The closest instant of physical connection between the characters is a wrestling scene that uncomfortably skirts around any overt gay behavior. I’m not saying that J. Edgar should have been Brokeback Mountain 2, but going to such lengths to keep the central gay relationship out of the physical realm is a very odd choice that is perhaps a little too telling of Eastwood’s feelings towards the lifestyle.
The director’s innate conservatism is not only a problem with the politics of J. Edgar, butthe production itself. Eastwood has made it clear in many interviews that he loves making movies, but always wants to be sure he’s off set at a reasonable hour. He knows how to work the Hollywood production machine, but doesn’t seem to get much pleasure out of it. Everything about J. Edgar feels oddly perfunctory. There’s no real personality, drive, or visual style. Every scene plays out in an obvious way with no real flourishes. It’s a boring movie and given the subject matter that involves crime fighting and insanity, it shouldn’t be. The biggest disappointment is the old age make-up that the actors wear for the bulk of the movie. It’s some of the least convincing make-up I’ve seen in years and I’d imagine that’s just a result of Eastwood not wanting too much time to be wasted getting the make-up right. Like everything else in the movie, it feels rushed. Though still professionally done, it’s clear no one was putting the time or effort into the make-up or movie in general that it deserved.
J. Edgar is a placid, tired biopic. The material was filled with potential and while a few sequences work well (everything involving the Lindbergh baby case has pleasingly urgent and suspenseful police procedural quality), for the most part the film is a wasted opportunity. DiCaprio will inevitably grab some award nominations for his performance in a slow year, but it’s not his best work. The actor seemed to focus his energies on finding a distinct voice and accent for the character rather than transforming his inner persona in a way that feels rather lazy. It’s a decent turn from DiCaprio, but nothing special. That comment sort of sums up the entire movie in general. There’s nothing offensively bad about J. Edgar, but there’s nothing noteworthy about the movie either. The film just sort of exists because enough famous people decided that they wanted to make it, rather than being a passion project from someone who actually cared about the material. Unless you’re a die hard DiCaprio fan or love movies about overbearing mothers, it’s probably best to skip this one and pretend it never happened.
Rating: 
Rated PG
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Top image: A scene from J. Edgar. Courtesy Warner Bros.
