Birthed from a script penned by his late father, David Fincher's eleventh film, Mank, a film Fincher has been trying to make since the 90s, is a “passion project” only on paper. So little of what we actually see on screen feels like it springs forth from any conviction or zealousness. Fincher has always tended towards the darker, cynical tales, granted, but this self-reflexive period piece offers plenty for the seasoned director to sink his teeth into and play with, and Fincher instead goes in a direction that feels directionless and deflated. Maybe this is because Fincher is a whole generation removed from the spark that ignited his father's initial passions, or because Fincher has never been a scriptwriter himself, but so much is left unexamined in this bland biographical drama.

Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) was a notorious alcoholic, for example, but we see him visibly intoxicated in all of one scene. Amanda Seyfried's Marion Davies, a friend and maybe unfulfilled love interest for Mankiewicz, is woefully under-utilized, drifting in and out of scenes with what feels like little to no consequence. Charles Dance's William Randolph Hearst, the famous real-world inspiration for Mankiewicz ‘s Kane character, is maybe this film's antagonist? But maybe not? It is theorized that the character of Charles Foster Kane was created by Mankiewicz as a reaction to Hearst and his iron-grip influence on major studio Hollywood, but one would need to do the research before watching Mank in order to catch on to this plot thread. While watching, I instead found myself recalling another recent "love letter" to Golden Era Hollywood by modern directors, the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016). Like the Coen Bros. effort, Mank never really plunges us into the real intrigue of a bygone Hollyworld. Instead, it's as if we are on a studio tour and our tour guide has ditched us and left us to our own devices. What we do stumble on to feels like disconnected film rehearsals and vignettes as a result.

There is a story here, of course, but it's not what you're expecting. It's a story about the 1934 election for Governor of California that saw Hollywood put its support behind GOP candidate Frank Merriam in order to further its capitalistic interests. Mankiewicz is tangentially involved in the studio's efforts to run smear campaigns against Democratic candidate Upton Sinclair and squash the Screen Writers Guild, which we see relayed to us via flashback while Mankiewicz is holed up writing Citizen Kane. "You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours," says Mank, remarking on the writing process, "[a]ll you can hope is to leave the impression of one." And so this film goes the route of Citizen Kane and leaves us an impression of Mank's life through episodic, nonlinear storytelling. But the result is diluted and meandering, never merging to impress on you a life lived with a purpose beyond Mankiewicz’s knack for operating in a studio system as an unapologetic rascal.

Where Mank does set itself apart is in its photography, its black and white tones coalescing to produce a disquietingly dreamlike atmosphere, as well as in its production design, which, while largely digital, gives pre-World War II Hollywood a distinctly fantastical quality, similar to the Rome seen in Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013). Oldman and Seyfried at least appear comfortable in their roles, and the dialogue is whip-smart and fittingly coy for a film emulating the Hollywood studio productions of the time. Unfortunately, what glimmers here is not enough to revive this very flaccid outing for Fincher.

"Mank"; Fincher Fails to Reignite His Father's Passions