Historical biopics are always tricky. Although recently shut out from the Oscars without a single nomination, this Clint Eastwood-helmed slow burner is a classy and assured take on the life of notorious American FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover from a script by Justin Lance Black (Milk). Perhaps the content was deemed a tad risqué, as Black chose to present Hoover as at once vulnerable on a personal level and obsessively driven on a professional one. Hoover’s ambiguous homosexuality (he was rumored to be in a gay relationship with right-hand man Clyde Tolson, though accounts differ) is presented here as both closeted and chaste, and that it was only for his mother that he never fully explored his “dark” side.Eastwood’s film recounts the story of his auspicious professional life and achievements for 48 years under eight presidents, flashing back and forth between his earlier and latter years by way of a historical transcript as he recalls his achievements. A man of vision, Hoover has firm ideas to lead the new anti-radical section of the department in order to protect America from the threat of communism and radical zealots. Although a loser in the romance department—a failed date with Helen Gaddy (an understated Naomi Watts), who eventually became his long-serving private secretary, and the inability to deal with potential suitors—it was his close and intimate relationship with Tolson (The Social Network’s Arnie Hammer in a superb turn) which eventually spurred him to work.Eastwood and Black aim for character study, avoiding overstatement or sensationalism, and it works well for the film. As a controversial figure, Hoover was complex—hated and respected in equal measure; and the film’s brave move to explore his sexuality as much as his work methods should be applauded. DiCaprio is convincing if not necessarily transcendental as Hoover (the man’s childlike physicality always seems to get in the way), and Watts and Hammer are the perfect polar opposites of each other—the former controlled and restrained, and the latter hammy (no pun intended) but likeable.Like the man himself, it’s a real piece of work.
