Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
4/29/07
Billionaire Howard Hughes
occupies a unique place in the mythology of the 20th Century: aviation
pioneer, Hollywood power broker, mysterious recluse. One reason his
legend resonates so well through the decades is that no one ever learned
the true story of his wild, eventful, insane life. In 1971, a writer
named Clifford Irving and his friend Dick Susskind decided there was a
fortune to be made by changing that, by authoring The Autobiography
of Howard Hughes. So what if Hughes himself was unavailable to
participate in the writing of his own Autobiography? In telling the
tale of how Irving refused to let reality get in the way of a good story,
The
Hoax is a fun, fascinating examination of how lies lubricate our society,
all the way from our most intimate relationships to the highest halls of
power.
Irving (Richard Gere) is
a working writer whose latest manuscript fails to excite his publisher,
McGraw-Hill. He's been reduced to taking meetings with the underlings
of underlings and to turn around his fortunes, he hatches a brilliant idea.
Howard Hughes hasn't been seen in public in 14 years; surely he would never
come out of hiding now to refute a fake autobiography. In fact, who's
to say he'd even know it existed? He pulls in friend and researcher
Dick Susskind (Alfred Molina), who's a considerably less skilled liar,
and presents his pitch to McGraw-Hill, complete with three forged letters
so convincing they fool even handwriting experts. Hughes, he claims,
has authorized Irving to negotiate a $500,000.00 deal on his behalf, one
the author later bumps up to a cool million. There's only one problem:
how do you cash a check written out to Howard Hughes? Unfortunately
for the budding scam artists, that's only the beginning of their problems.
Like most failed cons, The
Hoax is a lot of fun at first, then grows progressively darker and
more intense as things begin to fall apart. Gere's Irving gets inside
the famous madman's head a little too well, and watching him “become” Howard
Hughes is quite creepy. As his grip on reality begins to slip, our
own grasp of what's real and what's not becomes a little slippery.
One thing is clear, though: be it through his own dumb luck or some
outside force, Irving actually stumbled upon/made up information about
Hughes' relationship with then-President Nixon which was so damning that
the Autobiography's existence is said to have inspired the Watergate
burglary. The film depicts Irving as the sort of man whose own political
feelings and delusions of grandeur make him all too eager to turn from
making a quick buck to Bringing Down The President.
William Wheeler's screenplay
does a good job skating the historical record to tell us about a famous
incident all the facts of which will likely never be known. He's
fascinated by the mechanics of lying, and director Lasse Hallstrom does
a great job showing us visually how Irving builds fantastic stories out
of bits and pieces of things that really happened, making it easier to
keep his “facts” straight. For this man, lying is a way of life,
but his misadventures lead him to the truth that no one can match lies
with the nation's most powerful men. Even on the home front, he can
only keep an affair with a headline-seeking actress (Julie Delpy) a secret
from his wife (Marcia Gay Harden) for so long.
This is one of Richard Gere's
best performances, taking advantage of his snake oil salesman likability
while leaning heavily on him to show us what's going on in Irving's twisted
mind. And once his character starts to get really carried away, it
also reveals him as a pretty good Howard Hughes. No one's better
than Molina at seeming alive on-screen, and it's fun to watch him temper
that spirit with a quivering fear of exposure: I can't remember the
last time I saw someone perspire so amusingly. The story is filled
with interesting characters whose own egomania was fed by the deception.
After all, anyone could look at Irving's book and say it was a fake, but
it would take a real expert to confirm it as legit. The film has
a great sense of how institutional snobbery allows hoaxes to flourish.
The Hoax is working
on a lot of different levels at once. It's an interesting historical
curiosity, a “how much can he get away with?” caper, a thoughtful examination
of the role of lies in our society, and a cautionary tale about the dangers
of letting your actions be dictated by your hatred of the President (maybe
one the filmmakers themselves could have internalized before slipping in
an extraneous shot of Nixon endorsing George H.W. Bush for the Senate).
And it reminds us again that in matters of legend, madness, or deception,
there was only one Howard Hughes. |
