XENITH

Remember that dappled, romantic notion of writerly living we discussed?

Garrets, apples, dust motes, vellum, inkwells, and such. I’m struggling at present, feeling altogether too practical. The real world has a nasty habit of intruding at the most inopportune moments, as countless true-crime features can attest.

My less convenient attacks of pragmatism often hit when watching such large-scale sleight-of-hand as this 2006 retro con caper, relieved for a brief spell by the excellent Catch Me If You Can ,and, er, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. To my shame, I could side just a little, not just with a snarling, spoon-wielding leather-clad Alan Rickman, but also with the slightly less rock n roll big, bad corporations the audience might yearn to sting a little. I justify my nerdy attention to the small print, mutterings of ‘you’d never get away with that now’ with the question: which of us, in reality, when faced with a brilliant, articulate con man attempting to defraud us of millions, would respond with breathless awe at his daring?

A quirk that threatened to sour even Richard Gere’s charismatic, quicksilver performance, since Hoax hasn’t the lacquered, pre-Vietnam glamour and wide-eyed post-war optimism, nor the frustrated teenage genius of Spielberg’s effort. Instead, Hoax sets the action amid the drab interiors and luxuriant hair of the early seventies, as helpfully indicated by the spliced archive footage of furry anti-war protesters, and springs from the failures of ordinary, middle-aged men.

For the hero of Hoax isn’t a dysfunctional prodigy, but a just-about married, failed novelist who embarks on an impulsive act of revenge against the publishing company that dumps his latest work after a damning and highly influential review. It takes surprisingly little to nudge him over into ruthless fantasist, a man who begins to believe his own myth.

In an audacious swindle fraught with difficulties, Clifford Irving (Gere) claims exclusive access to reclusive and famously difficult billionaire Howard Hughes, for a corrosively gossipy, mudslinging biography (the best kind, surely?). What begins as a clever prank rapidly spirals into an exhausting long-term project, which derails Clifford’s fragile marriage to Edith (a woefully underused Marcia Gay Harden), and his long-term friendship with researcher Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina, in rumpled, sad-eyed support), and uncovers a political scandal that could make the career of any writer. By which time, of course, it is too late, as breaking the story could reveal the extent of Clifford’s fakery.

The film succeeds in sweeping the viewer along in a pacy adrenalin rush with minimal smugness, creates a grudging admiration for Clifford’s skill, while maintaining a keen sense of jeopardy. As ever, with the true-crime genre, the ending is a foregone conclusion, the jail time a footnote. Hoax cranks up the tension instead by counting the personal cost. In addition to killing off a few relationships, Clifford begins to identify a little too much with his enigmatic subject, through meticulous research, a gift for mimicry, and the facility for affecting embellishments of real life incidents. The tragedy of Hoax being that a man of his imagination and energy might well make a fortune by legitimate means.

Hoax attempts a limp satirical swipe at the media machine, as Clifford struggles to keep the froth and fury around his fake biography under control, but lacks the requisite edge to make the satire memorable, Clifford’s creative dissatisfaction tastes unattractively bitter, rather than tart.

Still, deftly sketched is the bantering, not entirely equal friendship with Dick. Once the latter progresses beyond the initial schoolboy glee, he emerges as a gentle, well-intentioned man as much in Clifford’s thrall as the salivating publishers. Less successful are the portrayals of the women in Clifford’s life. Marcia Gay Harden’s turn comprises a distracting haircut and little else – her complicity in the plot never satisfactorily explained. A lovely, pink chiffon-clad Julie Delpy wafts around a luxuriant bedroom or two, mere window dressing and a convenient plot device, as the vampish other woman.

In further wasteful casting, despite featuring accomplished character actors like Eli Wallach, a stern, bewigged Stanley Tucci, and the chilly Zelkjo Ivanek (Heroes, Damages) the publishing house suits blend, as intended, into a nondescript corporate grey. Clifford is so magnetic an obsessive even at his least likeable that it proves too easy for the filmmakers to neglect the peripheral players in his story. Some nifty set pieces, wry, ambiguous writing, a little context and a strong central performance make Hoax a well-crafted diversion, which with a little less surface, could have been more.