A rainy evening at the Palace Cinemas provided the solemnity to allow for Capote’s sobering messages to be absorbed readily. The film tells of Truman Capote’s pursuit of another literary success after Breakfast at Tiffany’s. As he investigates a massacre of a family in Holcomb for his one-of-a-kind ‘non-fiction’ novel In Cold Blood, Truman becomes emotionally captivated by one of his subjects.

Capote depicts the struggle between the egoistic motives of the shadier journalist, and the personal affection that Truman bestows on Perry Smith, one of the two murderers in the Holcomb massacre. It took six years for Truman to complete the novel primarily due to the appeals and the repeated stays of execution in the conviction of the murderers. ‘It’s harrowing’, Truman reveals, ‘All I want is to write the ending and there’s no fucking end in sight’. Truman’s moral disintegration emerges as he betrays Perry by withholding any further support in Perry’s trial that may impede a swifter resolution to his book.

Having read In Cold Blood, I perceived a book that described the injustices of capital punishment and that requested the reader to understand and feel for the victims of such injustice, the criminal. The film disappointed in this respect as the touching humanity presented in the book does not appear to manifest itself poignantly in the film.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman executes his Oscar winning regalement as the offensively treacherous and openly gay Truman Capote very well. I felt that Catherine Keener’s presence as Harper Lee to be too nice and too tolerant of Truman’s behaviour – I fear that she came across as the ultimate fag hag confidant that was too afraid and timid to challenge Truman too much.

I feel that the film also suggested that Truman Capote fell in love with the sensitive Perry Smith, and certainly In Cold Blood depicts Perry affectionately. As shifty as Truman was in the film, it becomes difficult to discern his feelings for Perry as he conveys an empathic understanding and tenderness to him one moment, and becomes a spiteful wench the next. However the guilt and anguish of covertly facilitating, and witnessing, the execution of Perry may well have contributed to Truman turning to alcohol and drugs after he completed In Cold Blood. The emotional trauma experienced by Truman after this whole ordeal meant that he never finished another book. I believe Capote attempts to explain why.

I give the film 2 and a half stars.