J Edgar

Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by Dustin Lance Black

With Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, and Judi Dench

Film director Clint Eastwood has succeeded once again in proving he really knows how to tell a story.  This time his subject is J. Edgar Hoover.

“J. Edgar” spans five decades of FBI Director Hoover’s life spanning seven presidential terms. Because Hoover’s personal files were shredded at the time of his death, there is much we will never know about most of his FBI activities.  Instead, this film is a fascinating character study of the mind of the repressed, rigid and paranoid Hoover, who saw threats to America wherever he looked. 

Tons of history are packed into the film, including the “Crime of the Century”: The kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby and Hoover’s capture of the kidnapper.

Hoover, who never married, was a Mama’s boy whose mother (Judi Dench), both smothered and made him feel inadequate. Their relationship illustrates a Freudian bond if ever there was one. It is no surprise that Hoover was reputed to be a homosexual and a cross dresser. He also was obsessed with homosexuals, communists, civil rights workers, or anyone else he felt trampled his nation’s moral fiber. To uncover these “enemies,” he implemented forensics such as wiretaps, crime labs and bugs to collect his information. He devised America’s first criminal database and insisted the country needed an armed national police force.

“J. Edgar” is shown mostly in flashbacks as he tells his story to a biographer.

He ages from a slender, handsome, 24 year old in 1919 to a paunchy old man whose suits are too tight. He was someone desperate for companionship, but unwilling to allow the vulnerability that a relationship requires, except with one man: Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), with whom he works at the Bureau. Clyde can get through to him as no one else can. The two had a life-long companionship.

Material covered in “J. Edgar” includes his bugging of Eleanor Roosevelt’s hotel room in which she allegedly had a liaison with another woman, as well as his bugging Martin Luther King’s hotel room to record a sexual encounter. He also had “proof” of JFK’s sexual liaisons, which he attempted to use to blackmail the president. He had confidential files on dozens of the rich and powerful.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives a towering performance as Hoover. He captures the enthusiasm of the 24-year-man all the way to the guardedness and paranoia that drives his character as the years pass. The prosthetic make up works to age him effectively. He never once caricatures J. Edgar.

Armie Hammer gives a sympathetic performance as Clyde Tolson, whose gentleness is a foil for Hoover’s rage and stubbornness. Unfortunately, his prosthetic make up as an old man is off, even somewhat grotesque and thus distracting.

Judi Dench does well as the overpowering mother. However, a younger woman would have been more suitable to play that part, particularly in the

early scenes of J. Edgar’s youth.

The only other woman in Hoover’s life was his secretary Helen Gandy, played Naomi Watts. Her acting is understated, and she ages realistically. She often exhibits her distaste for his methods with a subtle facial expression, but she is loyal to him until the end.

Eastwood’s film is character study at its best. It packs an abundance of history into its 135 minutes. The enigmatic and powerful Hoover shaped our FBI, but he was also responsible for dirty tricks, wiretaps, and extending the reach of the law. He was a tortured and repressed soul who wielded tremendous influence. Someone might be watching you. You never know.

Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene

 Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene

Directed and written by Scott Durkin

With Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and Hugh Dancy

In the riveting “Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene” two stars are born. Sean Durkin makes his debut as writer and film director and Elizabeth Olsen gives her first performance in a feature film.  

Durkin has crafted a potent psychological thriller about a young woman cult member who is unwinding as she tries to reclaim her previous life. Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of the Olsen twins, is that young woman. Both are extraordinary.

Nothing could be more serene than the pastoral calm at a Catskill’s farm where the film begins. What goes on there is initially not clear, but is slowly revealed throughout “Martha, Mary, May, Marlene.” In the beginning scenes, Martha slips away from the farm into the woods and makes a plaintive phone call to her estranged sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who she has not seen in two years. Lucy lives with her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), in gracious yuppie comfort at a spacious weekend  home on a lake. Lucy

takes Martha to their home. Martha, guarded and remote, never reveals what has happened to her. 

The narrative switches back and forth between Patrick’s farm and Lucy and Ted’s very comfortable life. The flashbacks reveal how Martha becomes indoctrinated into the cult. There are 10 women and five men overseen by Patrick (John Hawks), who is both charismatic and sinister.

The men eat before the women do. The women sleep together on mattresses strewn on the floor; they share the same clothes. And Patrick rapes all of them. He even changes their names. Martha becomes Marcy May. The women collectively are Marlene and are totally dominated and controlled by Patrick. They are supposedly “cleansed” by giving up their freedom to be part of his utopian farm.

Martha’s behavior at Lucy’s house is bizarre.. She skinny dips in the daylight, she crawls into Lucy and Ted’s bed while they are making love, she breaks items, she laughs at the wrong things, she disdains her sister’s possessions. She asks Lucy to justify her spacious home. The farm flashbacks illustrate why she is so disturbed.  

“Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene” is really a horror film, It’s very real and you can’t help but think about Charles Manson, David Koresh, Jim Jones, cult leaders who have been able to manipulate and dominate their followers.

Elizabeth Olsen gives an incredible performance. Initially she is a wide eyed innocent, but eventually she becomes paranoid and someone whose inner life is totally out of reach. The film is a psychological case study of her character. She will get an Academy Award nomination.

As Patrick, John Hawks is all sinew and charming when he needs to be. He is unnerving, sometimes appealing, seemingly sincere, but definitely the scariest of villains.

The script, style, and performances make “Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene” an engrossing film going experience. This is director/writer Sean Durkin’s debut film. The film is unsettling and unforgettable