J Edgar (Clint Eastwood, US, 2011)

J Edgar (Clint Eastwood, US, 2011)

Eastwood's excellent film is a typical example of his preference for working within genre while at the same time creating refreshing variations on its basic themes. J Edgar comes on like a standard issue biopic as an elderly Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) dictates his memoirs to a succession of young agents about the founding of the FBI and its early triumphs under his leadership. But late in the game Eastwood and writer Dustin Lance Black spectacularly pull the rug out from under us by having Hoover's close friend and confidante Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) declare that everything we've seen thus far has been a pack of lies. The question then becomes why and it's here that the point of Eastwood's film becomes clear. This isn't actually a biopic at all, it's really a tale of unrequited love, of Edgar's unrequited love, and of what happens when that love is denied and has to find another outlet.

I've never been a fan of DiCaprio but I must concede that here he gives a compelling and sympathetic performance as J Edgar in a time period spanning the best part of five decades and it's a testament to the humanism of both the script and his performance that as monstrous as the character often is we never entirely lose our sympathy for a man whose loving instincts (his date with the young woman who ultimately becomes his lifelong secretary is an absolute hoot) are crushed by a domineering mother (Judi Dench) and the strictures of the time which made an open (and not necessarily physical) same sex relationship impossible. As the object of Edgar's affections Armie Hammer upstages the star with a touchingly heartfelt performance as Clyde Tolson and there are brief but strong supporting performances from Judi Dench as Mother and Naomi Watts as Edgar's loyal secretary Helen Gandy.

For all its epic sweep - we see the young Edgar fighting communists in the early 1920's and his involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping of the 30's - and the beautifully conceived flashback/forward structure (at one point the elderly Hoover and Tolson shuffle into a lift only to emerge from it as their younger dynamic selves 40 years earlier), the way these events are yoked to Edgar's psychology make this an almost suffocatingly interior film. Fatalistic, wreathed in shadows and unreliable memories, suffused with loss and shot through with a haunting, melancholy feel, it's a long way from your standard Hollywood biopic.

At one point in Edgar's self-aggrandizing version of history a young black agent asks him which is more important, the organisation or the man who founded it. Edgar's reply is that there's no difference between the two and that's the tragedy of J Edgar. That prevented from developing a loving relationship he gave his all to the FBI with himself as its only permitted star. The result for Edgar was power, fame and fear, but never love. When Melvin Purvis shot John Dillinger, Hoover was so enraged at the prospect of the man's fame that he had him sidelined instantly. The film reveals that Hoover appears to have co-operated with Hollywood and commercial interests quite happily just so long as he was the beneficiary.

One especially memorable moment has Edgar humiliated before a senate committee as one wily politician demands to know in light of Hoover's endorsement of umpteen commercial properties (everything from G-man movies to cereal boxes) how many arrests he's actually made (the answer: none). This comes as a real shock since up to this point we had no idea Edgar was so involved in promoting his own image. Eastwood is in his element here. The theme of image vs reality is one of the perennial themes of his work and runs through the likes of Flags of Our Fathers, Unforgiven, Invictus and many more.

Of the wiretappings, illegal recordings and secret files Edgar amassed the film implicitly suggests that it was Edgar's own inability to express his love toward Tolson that fueled his abuse of power - his attempted blackmail of Robert Kennedy, President Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, his hatred of longhairs, progressives, communists, blacks, hippies - all projections of his own tormented desires.

One thing I particularly liked is the way that as Edgar gradually succumbs to his demons it's Tolson who becomes the voice of his conscience. In a key scene he warns Edgar away from an attempted blackmail of Martin Luther King. Ultimately it's too late to save Edgar but as the man ascends the stairs to his bedroom for the last time in his life there's a recognition from him that of all the things in the world, love is the strongest and most enduring of all. It's a very moving moment and topped in the scene following as Tolson weeps for the man he loved.

This could be, in another director's hands (Oliver Stone for example,) incredibly salacious but Eastwood directs with real sensitivity - the attraction between Hoover and Tolson is instant and magnetic but avoids being exploitative or prurient. Indeed the 'was-J Edgar-gay?' question is much more open to interpretation here than you might suppose. This is about love, it's not about being gay and it most emphatically is not about sex. There's also a lovely nod towards those rumours about Edgar's supposed fondness for cross-dressing. The production values and sense of period are utterly believable and a remarkable achievement on a budget of some $35 million.

J Edgar got a lukewarm reception from viewers and critics - liberals disliked its even-handed portrait of Hoover while conservatives resented the implication that he may have been gay and most viewers had little to no interest in an obscure historical figure - but the intelligent and perceptive script, the powerhouse performances and Eastwood's direction, mean, I suspect, that the reputation of J Edgar will only grow as the years go by. This is the kind of intelligent, mature film that Hollywood has all but given up making and if it wasn't for Eastwood's clout it likely never would have gotten made. Cautiously recommended then but don't go in expecting some standard Hollywood biopic. It really isn't that.

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