J. Edgar

Saw the movie about J. Edgar Hoover, directed by Clint Eastwood. I thought it was slow. The narrative takes place in 3 distinct periods of his life, and switches among them. I could follow along, but I didn't feel the out-of-sequence stuff helped much. The narrative also uses the "unreliable narrator" technique in places, as Hoover dictates his memoirs, which I found annoying. I knew an awful lot of the history, but was unsure where the screenwriters were just making stuff up.

Hoover himself is portrayed as a well-intentioned but flawed man.



A lot of the movie is focused on his gay, but Platonic, relationship with his second-in-command. I don't know how much of this stuff could possibly be verifiable, and although the movie is very well acted as a rule, I never felt there was much romantic chemistry between actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer.

By the way, nobody in the 1930's, gay or not, would have used "fashion forward" as an adjectival phrase to describe a necktie!

I say 2 stars out of 4,
no more.