Movie Review : Mank (2020)
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I try to avoid certain words when I talk about art. Words like boring, pretentious or any other vague, formless adjective you can describe any movie that didn’t win you over. These words are overemployed by critics, but they do have a proper usage. Today, I decided to break my own rule and call David Fincher’s latest movie Mank a pretentious bore. Breaks my heart to call one of my favorite living directors the B word, but I promise to make a case for it in this review.
Mank is the heavily romanticized biopic of Herman J. Manciewicz (Gary Oldman), the screenwriter who penned Orson Welles’ legendary film Citizen Kane. The film itself was the climax of a long battle of wits and influence between Manciewicz and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst (the always excellent Charles Dance), which was in itself embedded in the Hollywood communist scare of the 1930s. Mank tells the story of that battle at large.
The reason why Mank exists
There’s a petty clear reason why Mank exists: it was written by Jack Fincher, David’s late father. It was supposed to be shot prior to his death, but the uncompromising nature of the project scared studios away. I guess it makes sense that it was released during the pandemic too. Less risks and all. In a way, the fact that Mank exists is enough to justify it. It’s the kind of sweet, thoughtful gesture you make when you’re a good son and have a shitload of pull in Hollywood.
But that doesn’t make it good.
Mank is structured around a series of flashbacks and lengthy dialogue scenes where our protagonist constantly tries to outwit everyone while silently contemplating the ravages of studio capitalism around him. Mankiewicz is clever, but he’s never profound. He’s a bumbling alcoholic who’s barely even seen writing when he was actually hired by Hollywood to do so. I don’t know about you, but I fucking hate socialites who think they should be paid for being smart.
Althougth it is technically impressive, Mank is a lengthy, self-important mess that doesn’t really understand what it does well and what it’s terrible at. At least, narratively speaking. It is clogged by Mankiewicz’ self-important diatribes and his various encounters with other self-important men who say self-important stuff. It gets repetitive quick. You have to find the characters irresistibly witty and charming in order to enjoy this movie, but not even Gary Oldman can pull it off.
That’s what I mean by pretentious and boring.
The one good scene
Of course, David Fincher couldn’t direct a complete fiasco even if he tried. There’s a really cool dinner party scene in the first half, where the Hollywood elite is calmly discussing the cultural merits of Nazis. This was set in the mid-thirties and there were no clear prospect of a war. At least not among the civilian population. Elites were rather afraid of the communists then even if they are clearly depicted in Mank as radicals who are fighting the good fight.
That scene is fascinating because it shows the less enviable side of moral relativism, which is the great rhetoric weapon of our era. It is particularly used by left learning people to refrain from judging other cultures, but in this particular scene it is used by moguls to justify their way of life. They focus on what they have in common with Germans and deliberately obfuscate the horrors they were committing at the moment even if Mank reminded them.
I really liked the ideas explored in this scene, because the are extremely pertinent to our era. Not making value judgements on people you don’t now or understand is great, but if a certain culture or nation has already made a value judgement that lead to fucking genocide… well, you’re kind of a coward if you refuse to position yourself against it. Moral relativism by damned, genocide is never a good thing. You’re not open minded for putting it in perspective.
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Screw what RottenTomatoes is saying, Mank is not good. If I gotta be the “emperor is naked” guy on this one, I’ll be that guy. It’s a slow, sluggish and self-important movie. Even the soundtrack (created by soundtrack lords Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross) is not nearly as original and clever as it should be. Don’t get twisted up in the hype of David Fincher being quirky and artsy. I got so bored that I watched it in two different sittings. Should tell you all you need to know.
5.1/10
