A roguish, spry and darkly comedic caper, director Lasse Hallström’s
The Hoax is a smartly sketched, enjoyable movie that milks high
drama out of low-key stakes before then folding the secrets and lies at the
core of its story into an even grander conspiracy than its blithely egotistical
protagonist could have initially imagined. It unfortunately flailed at the box
office earlier this spring, pulling in just over $7 million domestically, but
gets reincarnated here in DVD form with a cover whose bright shades of red and
yellow play up its sparkle and energy.
one of
the most audacious and outrageous deceptions of all time jointly perpetrated on
the media and American public. Bummed by the last-minute cancellation of his
latest novel, writer Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) dreams up a work of
non-fiction that he knows would be sure to be an instant bestseller. He claims
to have obtained — via a mysterious, handwritten communiqué — the memoirs of
reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. At first,
idea is just a savvy artistic prank, designed as much to salvage his own
wounded self-esteem as anything else.
though, believes he can take it even further. Pitching his agent (Hope Davis)
and publisher McGraw-Hill on an exclusive, tell-all autobiography,
finds fresh ears. His stature instantly enhanced, Irving teases up the lie even
more, works out arrangements for an lucrative advance, and recruits friend and
fellow writer Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina, in a superlative supporting
performance) to help carry out the particulars of his scheme. When a few
associates of Hughes assail the veracity of Irving’s work, it hardly seems to
matter; using the business leader’s legendarily hermetic nature to his
advantage, Irving fends off these frontal attacks with spin, head feints and,
of course, good, old-fashioned fraud.
In real life,
pulled the wool over the entire publishing industry’s eyes for more than a year
until his clever yarn unraveled into a haze of serious crimes and corporate
embarrassment. (In a delicious irony alert that would surely be derided as bad
fiction in its own novelistic form,
had, in fact, previously written a book about art forger Elmyr de Hory,
entitled Fake, which could have tipped off dubious minds much earlier.) The
Hoax, meanwhile, uses the facts surrounding
ruse as a springboard to even more fanciful and controversial reverie. It
mischievously and imaginatively explores the alleged connection between
Irving’s meticulously researched but frequently conjectural tome, Hughes’
eventual quasi-complicity in the project — in a plan of grudge-settling and
payback that would still allow for plausible deniability — and the burgeoning
paranoia in the Nixon White House that would eventually lead to Watergate and
the downfall of a President.
What William Wheeler’s superb script smartly taps into is
not just the outlandish and colorful surface intrigue of its story — the nuts
and bolts of the faking of the biography — but the secret, unexplainable thrill
that all of this gives
if it’s heretofore been dormant, it’s hardwired to his soul, this need for
attention and respect. This is conveyed through the listless, almost reflexive
manner in which
adultery on his wife (Marcia Gay Harden) with an old flame (Julie Delpy) he knows to be untrustworthy and capricious. What we’re actually watching is
the implosion of an addictive personality, and the adrenaline rush that piling
lie on top of lie gives
Knowing that only the most bizarre and outlandish ones will work, to match
Hughes’ eccentric and impulsive personality, the author’s spiraling deception
is the fuel on which The Hoax runs.
So potent is its force, too, that by the end of the movie,
one is improbably siding alongside
waiting on a rooftop for a helicopter visit from Hughes that one knows can’t possibly
be coming. The Hoax toes the line of the “unreliable narrator” subgenre
of pictures, but never tips over into malarkey or complete self-obsession.
Magnificently constructed and manipulated by Hallström, the film presents a
Gere that we haven’t seen in a long time, if at all. Along with his turn in this
fall’s similarly smart and engaging The
Hunting Party, from writer-director Richard Shepard,
Gere finally, blissfully, seems to be loosening back up on screen, and not a
moment too soon.
Presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, preserving the aspect ratio
of its original theatrical exhibition, The
Hoax comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and is housed
in a regular Amray case. A nine-minute making-of featurette provides an
overview of the production, courtesy of EPK-style cast and crew interviews; Hallström
and writer Wheeler, meanwhile, provide optional commentary over 13 minutes of
deleted scenes, while an additional six-minute extended scene showcases the framework
of lively interplay that smart actors and character rootedness affords. Veteran
newsman Mike Wallace sits for a five-minute chat about his interview with the
real-life Irving for the television news magazine show 60 Minutes, though the full inclusion of this report, rather than
just clips, would’ve been nice too. Still, on top of these bonus features there
are also two feature-length audio commentary tracks — one from Wheeler and Hallström
and the other from producers Leslie Holleran and Joshua Maurer, who are equally
knowledgeable about the real-life Irving case, offering up anecdotes aplenty.
Overall, it’s a superlative packaging of a film that unfortunately fell through
the cracks in theaters.
To purchase the film via Amazon, click here. A- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
This movie kicks ass… just a lot of fun.