I have no strong feelings about Trumbo one way or the other. It's a perfectly fine - if numbingly straightforward - re-telling of the true story of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, played by Bryan Cranston. He's as good as you'd expect, though with the physical transformation, the funny voice, and the sheer amount of gurning he does, it's clearly a performance geared towards winning an award.
In fact, plenty of Oscar-bait hallmarks are loud and clear in Trumbo. It's set during the fifties, meaning there's a buttload of nostalgia for the GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD - and provides an excuse for actors to do a bunch of impressions of famous stars, including John Wayne, Otto Preminger, and a particularly bad Kirk Douglas. It's also a story set during McCarthy's communist witch-hunts era, which is a bit like having Indiana Jones fight the Nazis: no matter what our protagonists do, so long as they're fighting on the right side of history, they're going to be sympathetic. (It tries to give us a "there were no bad guys, only victims" message, but sort of undermines this with having Helen Mirren play someone so evil she might as well have a little Hitler moustache.) Oh, and let's not forget Louis C.K. playing the BEST FRIEND WITH CANCER, meaning WE HAVE TO FEEL SORRY FOR HIM even if he is COMMIE SCUM.
It's glamourous, it's slick, and it has a solid moral centre. But it also looks like it was made for television, and treats a serious story with an occasionally inappropriate light touch - it doesn't delve as deeply into the issue as, say, Good Night and Good Luck did. Also, does it promote the message that the artist - and therefore, the ego - is more important than the art itself? I don't know. Probably not. Cranston's performance is gummy enough to carry it, but the film is really a bit toothless.
★★★
P.S. Alan Tudyk plays a fat man who repeatedly makes this face:
