I’d prepped for the movie Mank by rewatching Citizen Kane, having not seen it since college. But it took me a few tries to get into this new film on Netflix… but it is a David Fincher movie and I’ve liked most of his efforts so figured there must be something at the end of the tunnel.

Mank is Herman J. Mankiewicz who wrote (or co-wrote) the screenplay to Citizen Kane. That’s largely the plot – the writing of (but not a behind-the-scenes of the making of) the movie that many consider the best movie of all time. It’s thankfully not 2+ hours of a guy hunched over a typewriter but of a guy busy writing a script while flashing back to the moments of his life that inspired the flick.

But that’s the plot… but what the movie’s about is a little more nebulous. It’s kind of about the studio system in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It’s kind of about the media moguls who run the studios and newspapers while manipulating the truth. It’s kind of about dirty pool politics and Upton Sinclair running for governor of California. And about Mank operating within a system that he’s growing to hate. Assuredly all the gears and mechanisms in these powerful men goes into Charles Foster Kane… and, hopefully, you as a movie watcher are familiar enough with Citizen Kane to see it.

I don’t think anything in this over-inflated script is bad… but I do think it’s begging for a point. And for an audience since people who aren’t driven by passion for 1940s Hollywood will be bored and confused… the movie doesn’t go out of its way to explain who these people are. At the same time, devotees of classic film will probably admire some of it but also wish for more (or nitpick inaccuracies).

I appreciated the movie more as an exercise in a modern film makers attempt to make a movie like they did in 30s and 40s. It’s handsomely filmed in black and white and has angles and shots that certainly remind me of classic films. But remind me only in most cases… it’s curious that Citizen Kane almost felt more modern than this film, despite the effort to ape its style.

So, yeah, I guess I wasn’t bored by the film, but certainly was looking for an angle on what it’s all about. And also admiring the technical craft. But I barely cared about the events and I think it’d have been a more interesting – if perhaps more formulaic – if it had recentered its narrative on the filming of Citizen Kane, not just the inspiration.

Score: 76