Trumbo (15)

four stars

Dir: Jay Roach

With: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Diane Lane

Runtime: 124 minutes

BRYAN Cranston doesn’t half scrub up well. For those who can only think of him as Breaking Bad’s Walter White, standing in the desert in white Y-fronts, Trumbo, set in a Hollywood golden age of tuxedos and cigarette holders, will be a revelation. It is also a confirmation, one boosted by his Oscar nomination, that he is one of the finest actors working today, a chameleon of many colours, all of them captivating.

Directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Fockers, Meet the Parents, Austin Powers, but don’t let that put you off), the picture tells the true story of Dalton Trumbo, at one time one of the highest paid screenwriters in the world and the man who penned the scripts for Kitty Foyle and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. In time, Trumbo, a communist, would go on to win Oscars for The Brave One and Roman Holiday and write Spartacus. In between, however, he would fall victim to the red scare which spread like brushfire in the Hollywood of the period. What room was there for Trumbo in an America which dubbed certain activities un-American? He, and many of his colleagues, were about to find out.

Roach lures the viewer into the tale with a portrait of the Hollywood of the times that is as seductive as Clark Gable in full flight. You will recall the scene in The Shining in which the Jack Nicholson character enters a room in the hotel and steps back in time to what looks like a more genteel, sophisticated age. While that scene has a shiver running through it, Roach’s world looks and feels like a dream, a fantastic place for lovers of old Hollywood to visit. Why look, isn’t that John Wayne strutting his Republican stuff? Get a load of Edward G Robinson, the little big man, putting the world to rights. And if it isn’t Hedda Hopper (played by Helen Mirren) being just as snarky as legend has foretold. Welcome to Hollywood’s Jurassic Park, where fabulous creatures have been brought back to life for your delight.

Working from a script by John McNamara, Roach sets the scene. The Second World War has been replaced by the Cold War, the snow globe has been shaken, and the likes of Trumbo must decide where they stand. Will the “swimming pool Soviet”, as he is affectionately dubbed, stick to his guns?

Though a period piece, what Trumbo has to say about free speech echoes down the ages, right up to today’s Hollywood stushie over the lack of black actors among the Oscar nominees. Yet it never feels like a lecture on political correctness and the US constitution. Serious points are made, but Trumbo is tremendous fun to boot. There are snappy, often gloriously bitchy, lines galore and plenty of Noel Coward-style posing and farce.

But there is raw human drama here too, particularly in the case of Louis CK’s character Arlen Hird, a man of deep principle who suffers for it. As events rumble on, individuals are tested, some found wanting, others not, and all the time one asks oneself, what would you do?

Fortunately no answer is required. The joy of Trumbo is that it offers entertainment and enlightenment in equal measure, with nothing ever made to seem like too much hard work. The performers look as though they are having a ball, Cranston and Mirren especially. She was made to play Hopper, all barbs, bouquets, and vinegar, while Cranston makes writers look like hard-grafting, courageous heroes, working from morning bath time to bedtime (Trumbo loved to work in the tub).

Hollywood adores love letters to itself. Witness the adulation poured over The Artist like so much honey. Often the navel gazing is less enthralling to us mere mortals on the outside. And maybe even Trumbo, at times, sugars the pill of the times too much, going for laughs where there were in fact few. But this is a picture that, like Hollywood of old, aims to make you feel better leaving the cinema than you felt going in. On that score it triumphs.