“J. Edgar” Jumps into the Oscar Conversation

Clint Eastwood’s formula of releasing an annual opus just in time for the Oscar season has produced a worthy nominee yet again with his portrayal of longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Leonardo DiCaprio in particular is bound to garner the Academy’s attention, along with endless promoters and statue speculators, come February 26 next year in Hollywood.

The movie harks back to transformative days of turmoil and strife within both America’s political system and its social culture, covering Hoover’s tenure from the 20’s to the 70’s. In the film’s beginning scenes, we get an augury from Attorney General Mitchell Palmer (played by Geoff Pierson), “This may be the end of days for our country, Dwight.” The foredooming tone runs the film completely, both clarifying Hoover’s paranoia and connecting our current political apathy to times that weren’t so very long ago.

The overly invasive reactions by Hoover, which include keeping special files for his special files, seem intended to remind us of our own personal reactions to modern terrorism threats. When DiCaprio states, “Sometimes you need to bend the rules a little to keep your country safe,” one can’t help but think of the photos of Abu Ghraib or stories of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being waterboarded 183 times in one month. Eastwood’s point about political abuses of power, however, seems slightly untimely in the sense that Hoover’s largest notoriety (his Orwellian confidential files on every major American player throughout his lifetime) would have been more evoking of George Walker Bush’s installation of the Patriot Act and the privacy controversies that followed. Nevertheless, the film still provokes much analysis.

The powerhouse performance by DiCaprio is enough to distract the viewer from any slight inconsistencies, partly due to the hypocritical nature of Hoover, played consistently codger-like and resolute. He portrays the FBI legend as a dichotomy, intensely assured of his morality and duty yet also mildly tortured from his social shortcomings along with his sexual denials and confusions. One cannot help but compare DiCaprio’s performance in “J. Edgar” with his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Howard Hughes in “The Aviator.” They are similar, but his attempt at Hoover is perhaps more impressive due to the fact that he cannot rely on his own charm.

This is perhaps his first movie to actually downplay his devilish demeanor. His chin hangs like a pendulum throughout the film as his inhibitions lead him to obsess about his weight, which he keeps being assured by his mother and doctor is nothing more than “solid weight.” And it feels like a trick of the retinas when we see a shirtless Leo at the film’s end, looking like a bloated body that hasn’t seen the sun in ages. Perhaps an even longer-lasting image is that of a young Hoover weeping in front of a mirror, standing in his late mother’s dress.

Armie Hammer also gives a superb performance as Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s longtime confidant and alleged lover. Reminiscent of Jake Gyllenhaal in “Brokeback Mountain,” his Sinatra-blue eyes evoke the humanistic tragedy of sexual bigotry and repression in a traditionally heterosexual society.

One of the more ironic aspects of the movie occurs in the previews when the audience is asked to turn off all recording devices. It feels as if the ghost of Hoover is in the projection booth upstairs watching the spectators below, keeping tabs on who is following the directions on the screen. Hoover was a complicated character—he was terribly secretive and unconcerned about the privacy of others, but also had enough internal struggles to overwhelm Oprah. Though DiCaprio’s portrayal of Hoover isn’t dynamic, it is sympathetic. Eastwood gives us a powerful insight into a powerful man.