Boy, I sure wanted to like this one. Boy, I sure didn't like this one.

Boy, I sure wanted to like this one. Boy, I sure didn't like this one.

This 2020 biopic directed by David Fincher purports to tell the story of famed wit and screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and how he came to write the screenplay of CITIZEN KANE. But the narrative and the characterizations are so full of historical and factual inaccuracies that this is pretty much a work of fiction. Which is fine, but then why not just tell a fictional story rather than pretend you are telling the truth? There's a real story behind Mank and the writing of KANE and it's pretty interesting, so why fabricate a phony one?

Adding to this problem are the performances. Gary Oldman is fine as Mank and Amanda Seyfried is spectacular as Marion Davies and the relationship between the two is the best part of the film. Tuppence Middleton and Lily Collins are also very good as Mank's wife and the secretary who helps him write the Kane screenplay. But the rest of the cast mugs and overacts to the point of caricature.

The film is shot in black and white and looks terrific, although Fincher has chosen to use a very hyper-active visual style that creates a great deal of anxiety in the viewer for no reason I can fathom. I think the idea was to mimic Kane's style, but it doesn't really do that so -- again -- what's the point?

As a movie fan and a film historian, I was really looking forward to this film, but I pretty quickly lost patience with the whole enterprise. It's been getting some really great reviews, which mystifies me.