Part of Capote's genius is that it is impossible to talk and think about it without talking and thinking about In Cold Blood, a task I am procrastinating (having finished In Cold Blood yesterday and immediately stopped to watch this film). The book is a skeleton key for American storytelling; the film is, by extension, a deconstruction of that skeleton key, and an exploration of what we now call parasocial behavior — what does it mean when the observer upends the observed, and who has the right of way?

So to talk about this film without talking about In Cold Blood leaves us with the performances. PSH is, obviously, tremendous — even setting aside the metatextual implications of his portraying an author who died to drug abuse, there is a viscosity to every single scene and frame he's in; he is selfish and smart and well on his way to his terminus, and you never for one second doubt who you're watching on the screen. (This is to say nothing of the supporting roles, uniformly excellent even if their jobs are chiefly orbital.) To hear him tell it, this is a story about how great art will just absolutely fucking kill you: it is a story about deciding whether or not the lethal dose is worth it.

★★★★★