Script review - "Trumbo" by John McNamara

Entertaining look at the legendary screenwriter, probably the best known of the Hollywood Ten (along with Ring Lardner Jnr), because he had the furthest fall from grace, being among the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood. He was the one who bounced back best too, getting Oscar nominated and winning Oscars under pseudonyms, and eventually being part of breaking the blacklist with Exodus and Spartacus.

This covers the most turbulent years of Trumbo's career - 1948 to 1960. It has plenty of support characters to illustrate different aspects of the blacklist - Edward G Robinson who names names, John Wayne who is anti commie but a bit soft, Hedda Hopper who is anti commie through and through, the King brothers who are thugs but have honour, Roy Brewer who is a thug, Louis B Mayer wanting to avoid trouble, Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger competing over who is going to break the blacklist first.

From what I know of the blacklist this seems a reasonably accurate account of events. It's fairly soft on communism - I thought there might be a scene of John Howard Lawson bullying them or Trumbo reflecting on Stalin or something.

I liked the depiction of the family scenes. These are normally not well done in biopics - they tend to be along the lines of "why are you never home" and so on - but these ones have real warmth and feeling. Trumbo is a likeable, engaging person though with plenty of flaws. It does feel as though in its heart that this is a telemovie but this was well done.