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.