Following up his successful novel “Breakfast at Tiffany’s“, American author Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) travels to a murder scene in Kansas, accompanied by his friend and and personal assistant Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), searching for material for an article in the New Yorker. When the two perpetrators are caught by the local police and put on death row, Truman forms an unlikely friendship with Perry (Clifton Collins Jr.), one of the killers. The conversations with him inspire the author’s greatest literary work “In Cold Blood“, a novel which became a milestone in non-fiction writing.

Director Bennett Miller’s first foray into the domain of feature films (his only other directing credit includes the 1998 documentary The Cruise) is not so much a biopic of the colorful author as it is the examination of one particularly important chapter in the life of Truman Capote, a span of five years that changed him (and the perception and execution of non-fiction writing in the aftermath). Miller’s directional approach is slow and methodical, it becomes clear very early on that this film will not go the way of the conventional drama in which the free person tries everything to avert the death of his locked up friend. Capote is about more than that.

The film’s heart and dynamic is the relationship that unfolds between Truman and Perry. Truman recognizes Perry’s state of loneliness and otherness in himself, which is why he’s drawn towards him, and Perry finds someone who is willing to listen and look past the crime he’s being reduced. As the film progresses, Truman is torn between the friendship (and maybe even love) he feels for Perry, and a longing for the execution to finally happen and be over with, because he couldn’t live with Perry reading his book or even finding out its title. But Perry is reluctant to talk about the murders, the information the author is desperately seeking in order to finish the book. And so it soon becomes questionable if the two men aren’t just using each other for their own purposes (Perry repeatedly asks Truman to find him a better lawyer, and seems to bank on the hope that Truman is painting a sympathetic portrait of him in his book).

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of Truman Capote is outstanding. The way he plays the flamboyance with which Truman easily entertains New York City’s upperclass in their regular meet ups in trend bars, the way he lets Truman’s true nature shine through in his character’s quieter moments (like when he’s with his trusted friend Nelle), or the way he articulates Truman’s odd mannerisms in general - Seymour Hoffman lives and breathes his character from start to end. It’s facinating to follow how Truman’s guilt tears him apart until he breaks down in the end, when he finally realizes what effect the execution of Perry will have on him. The supporting cast is not less noteworthy, particularly Catherine Keener, who’s subdued portrayal of Nelle Harper Lee, who finds sudden and unexpected success with her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” while Truman is struggling to complete his opus, works as a perfect contrast to Truman’s character.

Along with the rest of the remarkable supporting cast (which also includes Chris Cooper as the chief investigator who is both wary and in awe of Truman, and Bruce Greenwood as Truman’s longtime lover), the cinematography work of Adam Kimmel deserves special acknowledgement: he reveals a wonderful sense for painting-like compositions in interior shots as well as a talent for capturing the varying moods of the characters in exterior surroundings.

In the end, Capote is an astounding achievement by a first time director as well as a screenwriter debutant (Dan Futterman). In spite of the film’s slow build-up and the fact that it gets a bit repetative when Truman travels to and from the prison, the deliberately slow-paced film thrives on its actors, allowing them to carry the story. And its mainly these acting performances that heave Capote into a league of its own.

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