Mank

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
-Upton Sinclair

Mank, the first film directed by David Fincher since Gone Girl six years ago, is, as you may suspect, a Hollywood film dripping with Hollywood nostalgia for the 1930s and 1940s. That makes it a peculiar topic given that we're in an era where the nostalgia audiences seem to desire is about the 1980s. Box office tickets, however, in this pandemic are largely irrelevant, especially as the film is available to viewers on Netflix. Fincher, whose works often feature persona non grata, takes a different track this time. In Mank, the audience is told the tale of Herman Mankiewicz, the legendary and amiable Hollywood screenwriter most famous for writing (or co-writing, depending on who you talk to) Citizen Kane. 

Mankiewicz in the film, called Mank by his friends (and foes), is often demarcated in some way. In flashbacks, he is frequently drunk and obsessed with gambling, but generally likable in ways his enemies never are. In the present-day scenes (that is, in 1940), he's desperately yet reluctantly working away on a screenplay he doesn't seem to think will go far for "radio's golden boy" Orson Welles (played here by Tom Burke). Mank even agrees to write the film for $10,000 (about $180,000 in today's money, which must have been quite something in the midst of the Great Depression) but receive no credit. He's bound here, too, not only because his director, who has been given creative freedom by RKO, is demanding a script in no time, but also because he's bedridden thanks to a giant cast on his leg. 

Like Citizen Kane before it, Mank features a screenplay, written by Fincher's father, Jack (who died in 2003), that is non-linear. The film switches between Mank writing the script for Citizen Kane in 1940 and flashbacks from the 1930s detailing his relationship with different Hollywood figures, some of whom will serve as inspiration for characters in the famous 1941 film. Mank is recovering from a car accident, and to keep him away from alcohol, he works in a remote house in California to create a script in ninety—scratch that, sixty—days. Assisting him are his English secretary, Rita Alexander (Lilly Collins), and German housekeeper named Frieda (Monika Gossman), who feels she owes Mank her allegiance due to help he has given her in the past. The flashback scenes are the ones in which we see Mank interact with most of the Hollywood figures who helped shape the narrative of Citizen Kane. Aside from businessman, publisher, and politician William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), who served as the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane (the main character Welles plays in Citizen Kane), Hearst's mistress Marion Davies is a key part of this story. Davies may or may not have served as the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane's wife, Susan. (Welles later felt regret that Davies had become associated with the film.) Davies is played by Amanda Seyfried in one of the most talked-about performances of the year.

For students of Hollywood history, there are a variety of other names thrown at you in these flashbacks: Ben Hecht, Joseph von Sternberg, David O. Selznick, Irving Thalberg, to name a few. The two who get the most screen time are Joseph Mankiewicz (Mank's brother who won four Oscars, including two for All About Eve, and who is played here by Tom Pelphrey) and MGM head Louis B. Mayer, depicted here in a terrific performance by Arliss Howard. If there is a chief malefactor in this story, it's Mayer, Mank's conservative employer who comes across as an unethical cheapskate who can't quite understand why Mank is always antagonizing him. Mayer as a character, however, gets gentle treatment from the film. None of the more nefarious behavior of Mayer's is shown, like his sexual abuse, which was depicted in last year's Judy. Nevertheless, Mank's contrarian behavior toward Mayer will help serve as the inspiration for his famous screenplay.  

This rivalry is where the film dabbles in politics, and this is also where the Finchers theorize were motivations for Mank basing characters from Citizen Kane off of real people, sort of as an act of revenge. (Such an act can provide such catharsis for writers.) Part of the film's second act focuses on the 1934 California gubernatorial race between Republican Frank Merriam, centrist Progressive Raymond Haight, and socialist Upton Sinclair running as a Democrat. Surprisingly or not, this is where the film becomes most interesting, and Fincher has chosen a surprising figure to appear in a cameo as Sinclair. (He does kind of look like him, to be honest.) You may not know who Merriam or Haight were, but you've possibly heard of Sinclair, at least if you had to read The Jungle in university. The Jungle, Sinclair's exposé of the harsh conditions in which immigrants worked in meat-packaging plants, is Sinclair's most famous and influential novel, resulting in acts of Congress to reform the food industry.

Mayer and Hearst are naturally opposed to Sinclair's nomination. (The flashback scenes take place just around the time Hearst broke away from supporting FDR and went from being on the left to the right.) To fight his candidacy, Hearst funds xenophobic newsreels to instill the fear of communism in Californian voters. One of Mank's friends, a test shot director named Shelly Metcalf (Toby Leonard Moore), is recruited to direct these newsreels to help get him to the big leagues. (It's worth noting, however, that much of this, as Matthew Dessem has written in his fascinating fact-or-fiction article at Slate, is the work of Jack Fincher's invention. For example, there was no Shelly Metcalf.) Overcome with his guilt for making propaganda to harm a candidate working for working people, Shelly immediately falls into a serious depression, and Mank tries to save him. All of these events help fuel Mank's hatred for Hearst and his lackey, Mayer.

Mank is a film that certainly channels its inner-Citizen Kane from the get-go. In addition to its dialogue-rich screenplay (that was polished by David Fincher and Eric Roth, the younger Fincher's frequent collaborator who co-produced Mank), its gorgeous cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt essentially shares the same DNA as Kane, even featuring a few old-fashioned cue marks (those dark circles that suddenly appear in the upper-right corner of the frame) that look like the old days (in a gimmick that comes across as, well, gimmicky). The film's score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who won Best Original Score for the Fincher-directed The Social Network, is exceptional. 

However, I found Oldman's performance to be increasingly distracting. He certainly makes choices, but often those choices seem to result in what looks like a bad Jack Nicholson imitation. In the history of drunk men, there has never been a drunk man who acted as drunkenly as Oldman does here. And while some of the thought behind his approach makes sense (namely his effortful breathing, which is understandable given that Mank was a smoker and alcoholic who would die a decade later due to alcoholism), it cannot be doubted that the way in which he mumbles through this performance is a hindrance. Oldman is at his best when he tones it down (as he did in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the Dark Knight trilogy), and he's at his worst when he hams it up (like he does in virtually everything else). In Mank, he gives his most over-the-top performance in years. 

Aside from that, Mank is certainly compelling, and if you can keep up with its rapid dialogue, there's a lot viewers will like about it. I can't say it's unwatchable, yet it's not without numerous problems in addition to Oldman's acting. Mank is another mostly white movie directed by Fincher (there is literally only one Black actor who shows up for a few seconds), and there isn't much female representation here, either, which is unsurprising. The women in the film (Marion, Rita, Frieda, and Mank's wife, Sara, played by Tuppence Middleton) are not allowed to be nearly as interesting or complex as the men. In the all-male writers room, the only woman who appears is a typist who sits topless with pasties on her nipples without explanation. I suspect Fincher and his team are trying to make a statement condemning Old (and current) Hollywood of sexism, and yet it just feels like he doesn't quite understand the problem and instead fuels it. 

Mank is often quite dressed up and may or may not have a place to go, but it doesn't provide much of a reason for caring. Those who dig these kinds of behind-the-scenes biographical films will surely eat it up. Those who don't might find it to be a chore to make it through to the end. Still, Hollywood's love letters to itself often are rewarded come rewards season, and I suspect Mank will be as well. Yet my unfiltered opinion must be stated: I find most, if not all, of Fincher's work (including Menk) to be mediocre at best. (I said it. Sue me.) And I firmly comprehend that I exist in the minority when I say The King's Speech was better than The Social Network. (Sue me again.) But I do think the Academy should have split the difference a decade ago, awarding The King's Speech with its top prize and giving Fincher Best Director. While Fincher likely will be nominated, who knows if he will win. But he has waited his turn. I'm not his biggest fan, but everyone else is. Just give the man his Oscar already.