Trumbo (2008)

A more wide-ranging Hollywood story gets the documentary treatment in Trumbo, based on the play about Dalton Trumbo by his son Christopher. The film melds conventional documentary accounting of the life and career of the Oscar-winning screenwriter with dramatic readings of his letters. The defining period of Trumbo's life was his blacklisting by studios and publishers following his uncooperative testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The dyed-in-the-wool liberal refused to recant his interest in the Communist Party and certainly wasn't going to name names. Interview subjects include Walter Bernstein, Kirk Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Trumbo's children, and Kate Lardner, daughter of Ring Lardner, Jr. Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, David Stathairn, and Donald Sutherland bring every ounce of their talent and magnetism to the readings, which are, more often than not, as stirring as they are fiercely intelligent.