Trumbo

"Frank King rises, holding a baseball bat.
FRANK KING (CONT’D)
...I don’t think you and me are gonna be pals.

King swings viciously and SMASHES a lamp.
Brewer covers up,
SCREAMS
and goes for the door. Locked. Frank comes at him.

FRANK KING (CONT’D)
You gonna stop me hiring union? I’ll
go downtown, grab some winos and
hookers, there’s my next cast ’n’
crew! It doesn’t matter! I make
garbage!

He swings and SHATTERS a poster.

FRANK KING (CONT’D)
Wanna call me a pinko in all the papers?
Do it! Nobody who goes to my movies
can fuckin’ read!

Another tight swing and he BLASTS a second poster.

FRANK KING (CONT’D)
I’m in this for the money and the pussy
and they’re both fallin’ off the trees. Take
that away from me."

No matter how I slice it, on the surface Trumbo has little to recommend itself to the big screen. Another in a long line of love grenades to Hollywood, a gabfest that struggles to clamber from beneath the weight of its own introspective self-congratulations, and smart in that knowing way we've all come to deplore.

Yet I will go and see this riches to rags to respect movie again with an excitement I haven't felt in a couple of decades. I loved Cranston and Mirren, Stuhlbarg and Tudyk and Goodman and Lane. I loved this film from the moment the lights dimmed in the little theatre up the road. But for the life of me, I can't even begin to fathom why I see it as more than a parochial hand shandy and back rub.

But I do.  I see it as a a whole lot more.

I just love it. A lot. Which means you'll probably hate it.

But go see it anyway.

Trumbo