GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 4/4/07)

Those who believe fictionalized films that profess to be based on true events should actually bear some relation to the factual record at hand may find the title of The Hoax to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, Lasse Hallström's new film — from a script by William Wheeler adapted from Clifford Irving's own account of Irving's near-successful attempt, in the early '70s, to publish a fraudulent autobiography of Howard Hughes — goes on such flights of fancy that anyone with a passing familiarity with the case might figure that a more apt title would be The Crock. And then again, a lot of people aren't going to much care about The Hoax's relation to reality; and even the more scrupulous among us would have to admit that in the end the moviemakers have crafted a fairly diverting entertainment.

Its first deviation from the historical record is in its depiction of Irving himself. In documentary film clips, like those that can be seen in Orson Welles' great cinematic essay F For Fake, Irving comes off as one of the smarmiest operators conceivable. As imagined by Wheeler and incarnated by Richard Gere, Irving's still a con artist, but a lovable one, kinda like those guys in The Sting. He's also a bit of a cockeyed dreamer, who, as he invents his life of Hughes via document grafting and imagination, begins to channel the billionaire himself. This is an Irving who literally believes his own bull. And since every loveable con man movie needs a suitably unsympathetic victim, The Hoax finds a doozy: the publishing industry itself, which everybody likes to pick on these days. You see, here Irving comes up with his scheme after a particularly hurtful rejection from his publishers; the self-same meanies' eyes light up like slot machines at the mention of a book not only on but "by" the reclusive billionaire Hughes.

Alfred Molina, all wide eyes and sweat, plays Dick Suskind, an Irving sidekick who nervily/nervously talks himself into a bigger role in Irving's scheme than he should have taken. As Edith, Irving's long-suffering wife, Marcia Gay Harden suffers showily. Playing manipulative mistress Nina van Pallandt, Julie Delpy, who's at least a head shorter than her real-life counterpart, plays suitably self-serving. Hope Davis, as Irving's champion and dupe at McGraw-Hill, is a convincing cartoon of a blockuster/best-seller-sniffing type.

It would take a much longer review than this one to catalog all the ways in which these filmic characters depart from both the attitudes and the actions of the real ones, but again: even if you were inclined to keep score, Wheeler's script is a buzzing contrivance, and Hallström's direction is brisker than almost anything he's ever done. So by all means enjoy The Hoax — it's smart fun. Just don't buy it.

— Glenn Kenny