Movie Review Hollywoodland

Hollywoodland (2006)

Directed by Allen Coulter 

Written by Paul Bernbaum 

Starring Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Adrien Brody, Bob Hoskins

Release Date September 8th. 2006 

Published September 7th, 2006 

The death of Adventures of Superman star George Reeves is one that has haunted Hollywood for years. Did this once successful TV actor take his own life during a party in his home in 1959 or was he murdered? The new mystery/biopic Hollywoodland does not purport to answer any that question. Rather, Hollywoodland exists to ask some probing questions about the death of George Reeves. A question that may be answered by Hollywoodland is whether audiences will ever again accept Ben Affleck as a big time movie star. If people cannot let Ben off the hook for his movie mistakes, after his exceptional performance in Hollywoodland, they may never will.

By 1959 the career of George Reeves. formerly TV's Man of Steel, Superman, was seemingly over. After breaking off hsi relationship with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), the wife of Hollywood power broker, Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), George Reeves (Ben Affleck) found his once promising Hollywood career suddenly shut down. Trapped in a loveless relationship with a woman he had met only months earlier; and with a serious drinking problem, Reeves went to bed on June 16th 1959 with little promise for good things in his future.

Does that mean that Reeves went to his bedroom that night and took a German luger pistol and put it to his head and pulled the trigger? No one seems to know for sure. Reeves' mother, Helen Bessolo (Lois Smith), is certain that her son would not kill himself. So certain is Helen that she moves from her home in Illinois to Los Angeles where she engages the services of a private eye named Louis Simo (Adrien Brody).

Better known for his headline making than his detective work, Simo was once a prominent studio detective until he gave away confidential information about a starlet's death to a newspaper. Now, working out of a fleabag motel room, Simo's most consistent work is following and photographing cheating wives. That is, when he is not fighting with his ex-wife Laurie (Molly Parker) over the care of their son (Zach Mills).

The death of George Reeves looks to Simo to be exactly the case the LAPD said it was; a simple suicide. But with cash in pocket from Reeves' mother and the chance to make some big headlines, Simo takes the case and finds far more than he bargained for.

Louis Simo is a fictional creation of screenwriter Paul Bernbaum and director Allen Coulter who use Simo in Hollywoodland as a shorthand character to reveal real life mysteries. The things that the Simo character uncovers and the questions he asks are legitimate mysteries that have kept the death of George Reeves in the headlines for years. This fictionalization does nothing to dampen the real life mystery of the death of Superman.

The one problem with Simo as a character are the subplots attached to him. Director Coulter, best known for his work on HBO's Sex and the City and Six Feet Under, gives far to much screen time to Simo's problems with his wife, her new boyfriend, and the issues with his son. And on top of all of that Simo has a girlfriend and another case he is investigating. Each of these Simo subplots take far too much time away from the far more intriguing real life story of George Reeves and his mystifying death.

This is not the fault of Adrien Brody who rises to the challenge of this difficult role. The first half hour of the film is spent establishing Simo as a character and admittedly, it tries the patience of audiences who came for the George Reeves story. A testament to Brody's talent is that he holds these scenes as well as he does. The scenes still try the patience but they are certainly less irritating because of Brody's magnetic performance.

Ben Affleck delivers a tremendous performance as George Reeves in Hollywoodland. A subject of derision for the past few years because of missteps like Surviving Christmas and Gigli; Affleck is redeemed as the failing actor who could not escape the shadow of his most famous role. Affleck brings to Reeves the charisma and magnetism that Reeves exhibited on television, but where Affleck really excels is in bringing out Reeves' sad, tortured soul away from the glare of the stage lights. 

Like Andy Kaufman, who suffered every moment of his time on the television series Taxi, George Reeves hated the role of Superman. Reeves knew that playing a kiddie show hero, as his Superman was portrayed, would typecast him as not being a serious actor. We know this from the testimonials of Reeves' former flame, Toni Mannix and while anything she says regarding Reeves is colored with bitterness over their break up, it does track with Reeves' post-Supeman life where he struggled against the kid show stereotype.

When Superman finally ends and Toni is unwilling to help Reeves's career by talking to her husband, Reeves ends it and gives Mannix a motive to kill him. Of course, the volatile studio head Eddie Mannix also had plenty of motive to want Reeves killed. Reeves cuckolded the studio head and since Mannix had a reputation for punishing his enemies, the Mannix murder theory isn't farfetched/ These are a couple of plausible but wholly unprovable theories that the film covers but nothing close to a resolution of the mystery is approached. Despite the strong conjecture, you are likely to leave Hollywoodland thinking Reeves took his own life/