The Hoax (2006)

Based on the book by Clifford Irving
Written by William Wheeler
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom

In the early 1970's, Clifford Irving found himself in a strange place. His counterculture writings seemingly missed the spirit of the 1960's by a few years, and his growing obsession with reality, and its perceptions, only grew and grew after the success of his book "Fake!", which chronicles Elmyr de Hory, the greatest art forger of all time, who successfully passed off paintings he painted as original Matisse paintings, that even passed through the approval of the highest echelon of authentication experts, thus proving that their expertise had no basis in reality at all if a forgery could be so good it could pass as the original amongst the people that were supposed to be the final word on authentication.

After the moderate success of "Fake!", Irving was still having financial troubles, and he quickly set out to write the most important novel of the 20th century. After brainstorming sessions, he stumbled upon the fact that Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire, had not made a public appearance in 15 years, and decided right then and there that he would concoct a story where he was the only person to communicate with Howard, and that Howard had commissioned him to write the autobiography of the most important recluse of the 20th century, Howard himself.

This film focuses on just how Clifford (Richard Gere), his friend/researcher Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina), and Clifford's wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden) pull off the biggest hoax of the 20th century, at one point even fooling the last reporter to talk to Howard in person into believing that the autobiography was authentic because he believed no one could recount the events of Howard's private life and even an isolated incident with said reporter, with such accuracy without actually having the participation of Howard himself.

Embroiled in the hoax are Irving's publisher, led by Andrea Tate (Hope Davis), the magazine that bought the serialization rights to the book at a record price, and the American public, who believed that Howard Hughes was finally willing to make public his long reclusive life. As a side plot, the film also focuses on Irving's affair with Nina Van Pallandt (Julie Delpy) and the strain it caused on his relationship with his wife Edith, and the stress that Clifford lived through due to the tumultuous lies he concocted in both his personal and professional lives.

As a big fan of Irving's work, I was always weary to watch this film, wondering how they would portray Irving's stories of how these events played out, but I have to say they found a narrative structure that set it up with the possibility that everything Clifford said happened, did happen, but at the same time it leaves the viewer questioning what was real, what was fake, and what happened only in Clifford's head, but that he still believed really happened. It's a well made biopic, with many interesting techniques to create the period around Clifford, including background replacement with stock footage from the early 1970's.

Gere is a revelation as Clifford Irving, anyone that has watched footage of the actual man will be surprised at how well Gere matches his mannerisms, his speech patterns, and the general air that Clifford carried about him. Alfred Molina is fantastic as the supportive friend to a point, he probably plays the most complex character because of the moral dilemmas he faces just being the friend of Clifford Irving. The script is structured to lead everything up to the climax, where of course everyone discovers that Clifford made everything up, but to watch him concoct lie on top of lie is a very interesting process, especially knowing that he actually pulled all of this in real life. The music is typical period stuff, but the placement and meaning of each song directly correlates to the plot, it had my foot tapping and I was very pleased with the way they designed the entire film, this is what a period biopic should look like.


8.5/10