IMDb plot summary: 1930's Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane.
Directed by David Fincher. Starring Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, and Tom Pelphrey.
This movie feels a little caught between the two stories it wants to tell -- Mank's full life and his work writing Citizen Kane -- and they never meld quite as neatly as I want them to. The latter is far more interesting to me, but the story ends just as it reaches one of the more dramatic moments in that narrative and abruptly jumps to the resolution. I think I'm supposed to fill in the narrative and thematic gaps with what has been revealed about his past, but I still find myself missing what feels like the end of the story. Instead the film meanders and aimlessly philosophizes and feels like it's grasping for *something* it never quite reaches.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Mank > It Comes at Night
Mank < Chronicle
Mank < The Hidden Fortress
Mank < Two Weeks Notice
Mank > The First Wives Club
Mank < Jeff, Who Lives At Home
Mank > Mr. Nice Guy
Mank < Duck Soup
Mank < Frequency
Mank > The Forbidden Kingdom
Mank > The Diary of Anne Frank (2009)
Mank > Anonymous
Final spot: #1512 out of 3293, or 54%.
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