J. Edgar Hoover was a man of many parts, some admirable, some distressing. He was ambitious enough to lie, cheat and steal his way to power, strong enough to hold it for generations, vicious enough to destroy lives without a qualm, egotistical enough to callously seize credit from those who deserved it. And he loved his mother, too, as displayed in "J. Edgar," a strong biographical film that opens today.
With Clint Eastwood directing, and showing facets of his own character that could not be more unlike Dirty Harry, and with some brilliant ensemble acting, the movie is good enough to overcome some truly awful moments, like the morgue-like, almost-grotesque makeup on many of the people as they grow older, and an actor (Christopher Shyer) who neither looks nor sounds like him as Richard M. Nixon.
Dustin Lance Black, who wrote "Milk," the story of San Francisco's first openly gay city councilman, packs a great deal of history into two hours and 17 minutes, touching on Hoover's service to eight presidents. We also see figures like Emma Goldman, anarchist and revolutionary; Mitchell Palmer, the attorney general who saw post-Russian Revolution enemies under every American bed; Martin Luther King, whom Hoover tried — and failed — to convince to turn down his Nobel prize; John Dillinger; Charles A. Lindbergh; Bruno Hauptman, convicted of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and executed for the crime; several attorneys-general; Shirley Temple, child actress; and others who made history or were tangential to it.
Black's screenplay certainly makes it appear that Hoover was a homosexual. Whether his relationship with Clyde Tolson was sexual or not is shrouded in unresolved mystery. Perhaps Hoover had no sexuality at all. But when it comes to sexual hang-ups, many people in the movie have some. Take Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), Hoover's long-time and fanatically loyal secretary. Both are young, and she does not yet work for him, but when they're out on a date, sometime in the 1920s, she pointedly tells him that she is not interested in marriage but means to have a career. And then she goes to work for him, and the possibility of romance disappears.
Or take the matchless Judi Dench, who rarely gives a less-than-perfect performance. She's Annie Hoover, and she's a quintessential Mom as she hovers over her Edgar. When sexuality comes up, she snaps, "I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son," echoing the Al Dubin lyric about "the daffodils who entertain at Angelo's and Maxie's" in "The Lullaby of Broadway."
Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent as Hoover. He's mercurial as he flits from subject to subject, but in the end it's always about him, and his power, and his Federal Bureau of Investigation, the famous G-Men of the 1930s. He's pudgy, and not very brave, but when he shows up at a crime scene, he's holding the pistol or the Tommy-gun. Armie Hammer, who played both the Winkelvoss twins in "The Social Network," turns in a fine performance as Tolson, who educated Hoover in the social graces.
"J. Edgar" falls short of greatness, but it's a very good movie about a very flawed man.
J. Edgar opens today at several theaters.
—Joe