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Richard Gere is thoroughly
convincing as writer Clifford Irving in the Hoax |
Gere brought to book
THE HOAX
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom
Certificate 15
In 1971 the writer Clifford Irving created a massive stir in literary circles by persuading the US publishing house of McGraw-Hill that he had been hired by Howard Hughes, no less, to produce the autobiography of the reclusive billionaire.
“This will sell more books than the Bible,” shouts his editor (Hope Davis) to her fellow directors.
And then the bombshell drops: the whole thing was an elaborate scam.
Irving (Richard Gere) never met Hughes, or even talked to him. Instead we see him forging letters to himself in the film mogul’s spidery scrawl, authorising him to go ahead on the book, and even raiding the Pentagon to filch secret papers on a top-secret Hughes aero deal with the government.
His final manuscript is enough to fool the hard-nosed publishers, and Irving walks away with an incredible million-dollar advance.
“The more outrageous we are, the more they’ll believe us,” he confides to his sweating sidekick (Alfred Molina), as he doubles the price on the spot. “We’re dealing with a lunatic hermit: he won’t sue!”
Gere is thoroughly believable as the errant writer who becomes so bound up with his invisible subject that at home in his apartment he slicks back his hair, paints a moustache on his upper lip with burned cork, and takes over Hughes’s persona to invent speeches in the billionaire’s own reedy voice.
As the publishing boss who sanctions the deal, Stanley Tucci turns in another terrific performance. Like Robert Duval and Ed Harris, he belongs to that small coterie of brilliant supporting actors who occasionally get the chance of above-the-title roles, and always shine in any film where they appear.
In the reliable hands of Swedish director Lasse (Cider House Rules) Hallstrom, this true-life drama is as suspenseful as any crime thriller, even if the only bodies on the carpet are those of the publishing board who were taken for a ride in one of the most notorious hoaxes in publishing history.
Go see. |
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