Mank (2020) ***

David Fincher's Mank (2020), befitting the subject matter of one Herman J. Mankiewicz as he writes the screenplay for Orson Welles's debut masterwork Citizen Kane (1941), is structured much like a Welles film but also suffers the same weaknesses—it’s often confusing, not always engaging, and sometimes boring.

Fincher has made "biopics" before (Zodiac (2007) and The Social Network (2010) (my review here))—both those films were brilliant and effortlessly drew in a wide audience to their topics. Mank, on the other hand, is a much more specific subject that wouldn't necessarily interest everyone. It very much interested me but I was still left feeling a bit let down.

Again, much like a Welles films, Mank is a very rambling, often breakneck affair—one that drops you into its world with basically no warning. It assumes that the audience will catch on but with the mumbly (seemingly frequently overdubbed) dialogue (difficult to distinguish at times), it has the same kind of disorienting, confusing effect that Welles films have and I'm just not sure that works for a "biopic". 

Also the monaural audio, while an interesting effort at recreating a certain sound, created a weird echo that caused me to have to shuffle through several audio options to find one that wasn't distracting ("Full Mono" was the only one I could tolerate). I don't find that this filmmaking choice works for a modern film, presented on Netflix, being played through a surround sound setup. On the plus side, the jazzy/classical Rez/Ross score is good.

I have (mostly) no complaints on the acting front. Gary Oldman is great at the titular character, as expected. Amanda Seyfried (as Marion Davies, star of the silent and early "talkie" era) and Lily Collins (as Rita Alexander, whom Mank dictates script to) are both good as well. Arliss Howard, as no-nonsense studio magnate Louis B. Mayer, is a standout. Charles Dance is also good, as the not-so-veiled subject of Kane, William Randolph Hearst—though he doesn't have a whole lot of screen-time. The actor playing Welles (Tom Burke) however just doesn’t pull it off. Another thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was the age difference between Oldman and Seyfried. Oldman was 61 when Mank was filmed, Seyfried was 33, and both of their characters are supposed to be 42/43. It's not convincing at all. Oldman looks far too old and Seyfried far too young.

While it is undoubtedly technically beautiful, too often Mank feels too much like an exercise and less like a film with its own voice or one that will stand the test of time. Rather than being a picture shot on film (which this should have been), it very much looks like a digitally shot picture made to look like film. Some scenes create a pretty good facsimile but others are far too pristine. The "cigarette burns" that were inserted are just distracting.

There are certainly aspects to be appreciated about Mank and I'm sure I will revisit the film someday. But, while it pains me to say it—I love Citizen Kane, I love black & white films, and I love many Fincher films, but this isn’t one of them.

You can find my David Fincher Feature Films Ranked list here.