Movie, 2015

Biopic of black-listed writer Dalton Trumbo and the struggles he and fellow Hollywood screen writers endured in the 1950s McCarthy purges. A nicely shot rags to riches to a kind of redemption film, whose focus on the main character – played excellently by Bryan Cranston – injects a weight of feeling and the chance to live and empathise in a period of history about which much is known. The incessant misery meted out by columnists, A-list actors and organisations, struggling stars and the political machine are punctuated here and there, either with domestic drama, or the refreshing big and open opposition of schlock director Frank King. A very decent film, which sweetens Hollywood’s warts, but shows them all the same.