Wow, I already was in love with Mank the movie, fresh out of the can on Netflix. The black and white cinematography (filmed on Red Prototype by Erik Messerschmidt making me feel I’m in the halcyon Wizard of Oz and am so happy I don’t even want colorization), Gary Oldman’s amazing performance, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Amanda Seyfried as Marian Davies and Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst: all enchanted me from the get go.
While the film is about the writing of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, portrayed in a small number of scenes by Tom Burke (so good in The Souvenir!) the film centers on Herman Mankiewicz who used Upton Sinclair’s election campaign and his long time affiliation with William Randolf Hearst as super muse to write the first draft of what is arguably the best movie of all time.
The arrow that struck me in the heart in researching this review was that the screenwriter of THIS film is actually director David Fincher’s father, Jack, who died in 2003. The parallelism is outstanding as Jack Fincher’s biopic screenplay on Howard Hughes was turned down for The Aviator. Hence, David was fulfilling his dad’s own dream posthumously all while telling the story of heroic Mankiewicz who also went largely unheralded during his lifetime.
The film is long and maybe a tad overpopulated (did I need the scenes with multiple screenwriters playing cards?) and the flashbacks were a little annoying as well, yet I totally get the need for flashbacks to rev up a story mostly about a writer (Mank) and his muse (WRH’s unruly power and Upton Sinclair’s plea for labor reform).
Gary Oldman is a marvel as is Fincher (both father AND son), the latter of whom is a two time Oscar nominee for The Social Network and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Probably my highest praise is for Jack Fincher’s screenplay which is whip smart and what Covid couch potatoes need to fire up their brain and attention skills again. Definitely in my top 5 now for 2020.
