The Hoax
On the shelf for several months- it was originally to be a Fall release- Lasse Hallstrom’s sly satire sneaks up on you, telling a riveting true story in a way that is deviously entertaining and impossible to miss. After years of Oscar nominees (“The Cider House Rules,” “Chocolat”) and Oscar wannabes (“The Shipping News”), Hallstrom loosens up with the prestige to get down-and-dirty with the true story of Clifford Irving (whose memoirs of the event were smartly adapted by William Wheeler), an author who’s latest potboiler is turned down by his publishers at McGraw-Hill in 1971. To get his career back on track, Irving tells a bit of a fib, claiming to be working on “the most important book of the 20th Century”- an autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. To sell the lie, he forges letters, steals government (and personal) documents, and remembers the fundamental rule of any lie- it’s all in the details. And it works, getting the book to print before a telephone news conference with Hughes in 1972 put an end to the hoax, forcing Irving into prison for fraud for two years and forcing him to pay over a million dollars in advances back to McGraw-Hill and the IRS.
As Irving, Richard Gere delivers one of his best performances, displaying that “Chicago”-esque razzle-dazzle as a con-man who swaggers and slick-talks his way into importance with the sheer verve and gusto he delivers his lies- it worked for a time; people took him at his word. And normally in a film like this, that would be enough, but Hallstrom also explores the psychological and emotional toll that comes with compulsively lying every day, be it related to one night he shared with a former lover (“Before Sunset’s” Julie Delpy) to his wife (Marcia Gay Harden), whose worked hard to trust him again; or to his need for his researcher/fellow author friend Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina is Gere’s equal as Irving’s moral opposite); or to himself, as when he records a faux interview with Hughes- changing his voice for Hughes’ side (and even giving himself a mustache)- and comes in posession of sensitive documents that could mean the downfall of then-President Nixon (actually, it was because of Irving’s book that the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon’s resignation took place). Gere puts you in the mind of a man in love with his lies, so much so that he can’t see his reality with the same level of clarity; it’s a side of the actor that we’re not used to seeing, and he portrays it beautifully and makes the transition effortlessly (with Hallstrom further illuminating the change through the work of cinematographer Oliver Stapleton and- it’s good to hear from him again- composer Carter Burwell). It’s odd how no one I’ve read about the film- although to be fair, I haven’t read much on the film- draws a parallel between the isolation Irving drives himself towards with the recluse Hughes- his subject- became in later years. It’s just another detail that breathes life into this knockout of a movie about a con job where the lessons are just as important now as they were 35 years ago. As a movie, at least, “The Hoax” is the real deal.
