US (2005): Drama/Crime/Biography

In November, 1959, Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and a favorite figure in what is soon to be known as the Jet Set, reads an article on a back page of the New York Times. It tells of the murders of four members of a well-known farm family -- the Clutters -- in Holcomb, Kansas. This story catches Capote's eye. It presents an opportunity, he believes, to test his long-held theory that, in the hands of the right writer, non-fiction can be as compelling as fiction. He convinces The New Yorker magazine to give him an assignment and he sets out for Kansas with his friend from his Alabama childhood, writer Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who within a few months will win a Pulitzer Prize and achieve fame of her own as the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

In Kansas, Capote quickly wins the trust of the locals, most notably Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who is leading the hunt for the killers. Caught in Las Vegas, the killers -- Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) -- are returned to Kansas, where they are tried, convicted and sentenced to die. Capote visits them in jail. As he gets to know them, he realizes that what he had thought would be a magazine article has grown into a book. But he wonders if he can write the book -- the great book -- he believes destiny has handed him. Bennett Miller directs Dan Futterman's screenplay from Gerald Clarke's book. (Sony Classics - Web site)

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5 nominations, 1 Award