It can hardly be called a recurring theme after two days, but last night’s gala brought Trumbo to the BFI London Film Festival and, like Suffragette, served up another slice of history that’s inexplicably taken decades to reach the screen. Amid the Red Scare paranoia of ‘50s America, top Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was among ten writers blacklisted and imprisoned for their communist views, and while fighting for his creative freedom secretly penned some of the era’s most enduring and Oscar-winning hits.
Breathing life into this story of political strife and artistic struggle? Jay Roach, director of Austin Powers and Meet the Parents. It’s an unlikely match at first glance, but John McNamara’s witty script pokes fun at this embarrassment in Hollywood’s past, while Roach is careful to let the cautionary message speak volumes in a biopic that’s often breezily comedic.
“He finds humour in the absurdity of human behaviour”, co-star Helen Mirren (who plays acid-tongued gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) told Empire. “I think that’s the best kind; it didn’t feel like he was directing a comedy at all.”{Trumbo LFF Gala}Joining Mirren and Cranston on the red carpet in Leicester Square were Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and John Goodman, whose turn as a sardonic studio exec sees him no less gloriously foul-mouthed than in Argo. Could this latest tale of Hollywood and politics see awards buzz come February? Cranston is in with a chance, barking Trumbo’s one-line witticisms with grizzled, moustachioed relish whilst conveying the traumas faced by a real unsung hero.
“You couldn’t have asked for anything better”, said producer Shivani Rawat of his performance. “He really makes you believe he’s Trumbo.” Her ideal cast got the film off the ground faster, but it was the man himself, responsible for Roman Holiday and Spartacus, who convinced Rawat to back it. “I never knew his story, yet we’ve all grown up watching his films. I was on board after five pages.”
Trumbo will be released in UK cinemas on 22 January 2016.
Reporting by Alastair Livesley, with thanks to Go Think Big and O2.
Source Empire News http://ift.tt/1P2xR6B
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