Early in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” we learn that there’s history, and then there’s history as told by J. Edgar Hoover. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Hoover is a man whose obsession with fact and truth ends when the subject is himself. The film opens with Hoover dictating a biography of his career to a junior FBI agent. The goal, he says, is to write something that clearly defines the heroes and villains of history.
Hoover, of course, regarded himself as a hero; to him, the villains were political radicals, bank robbers and anyone who stood in his way, professionally, politically, or personally. Hoover as the hero was the FBI party line for the nearly six decades he served as the agency’s director (he became director of the Bureau of Investigation, the FBI’s predecessor, in 1924). But, after his death in 1972, a counter-narrative began in which Hoover was the villain. His dirty deeds extended from the maniacal—the “secret files” he compiled and used to blackmail presidents, politicians and everyone else, or using COINTELPRO to infiltrate and discredit the civil rights movement—to the mundane, such as his capricious punishments for agents who displeased him or garnered publicity that should have been his.
In “J. Edgar,” Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (who wrote 2008’s “Milk”) try to reconcile the mythologized Hoover, the historical Hoover, and the real man underneath it all. As a result, “J. Edgar” is as elusive and frustrating as Hoover himself.
The film casts Hoover as neither a villain nor a hero, neither sympathetic nor pitiable. Black and Eastwood often come close to revealing the complexities beneath Hoover’s brash exterior and fanatical façade, but frequently come up short. The subject is more to blame than the filmmakers. Hoover did such a thorough job of mythologizing himself and obscuring his personal life that Black, Eastwood, and DiCaprio are left to paint a portrait with only hints, innuendos and suppositions.
“J. Edgar” is told in flashback, with Hoover, at the height of his powers in the late 1960s, reflecting on the beginnings of his career in 1919. With a senile father and a suffocating mother (played with aplomb by Judi Dench), it’s no wonder young Hoover threw himself into his work. He finds comfort and purpose in the pursuit of political radicals, though the source of his fervor is never totally clear. There’s a lot in common here with DiCaprio’s performance as conman Frank Abignale in “Catch Me If You Can”—he plays Hoover as a master of disguise and obfuscation, a man who makes a public show of his own morality and sense of justice to keep hidden his own frailties.
“J. Edgar” really comes alive when Hoover’s frailties become human in the form of Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The two first meet in a nightclub, where an associate of Hoover’s introduces the young Tolson. It’s not quite love at first sight, but it’s something, and the scene is wonderfully acted by Hammer and DiCaprio. It’s the first time cracks appear in Hoover’s façade, and DiCaprio pulls it off wonderfully. Through him, we see that, even in private, Hoover was never fully honest about who he was and what he wanted. DiCaprio doesn’t inhabit Hoover in the same way that, say, Sean Penn captured Harvey Milk, but it’s not due to lack of skill; he can’t inhabit the role because Hoover himself was a construct.
The relationship between Tolson and Hoover remains chaste but unambiguous in “J. Edgar.” The historical truth of their relationship is hard to pin down, but the emotional truth of unspoken, forbidden love drives the film and gives it a tragic edge.
Reconciling that private tragedy with the arc of Hoover’s career seems more than “J. Edgar” can handle, though. The film gets hung up on Hoover’s involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping, a defining moment in the FBI’s history (since it spurred federal laws that gave the FBI increased investigatory powers), but not a defining moment in Hoover’s life. The tension between Hoover’s ideals of justice and his willingness to subvert the Constitution in pursuit of communists in his middle years is missing—a glaring and frustrating omission.
Hammer breathes some life into the latter half of the movie when the ailing Tolson bluntly challenges Hoover’s version of events. If only there were more of that push between the real and the fictional. There’s room in “J. Edgar” for judgment and sympathy, but Eastwood and Black err perhaps too heavily on the side of sympathy and ambiguity. It was a fine position for Eastwood to take in the meditative “Hereafter,” but it’s maddening in “J. Edgar.”
While it avoids some of the more lurid rumors about Hoover (such as tales of his penchant for cross-dressing), “J. Edgar” never holds its subject accountable. It’s a fundamental problem that seeps through in other areas of the film. Naomi Watts plays Helen Gandy, Hoover’s life-long personal secretary. She’s a fascinating character, just as career-driven and secretive as Hoover, but she’s shuffled off-stage too quickly and the source of her devotion is a mystery.
The cool confidence with which Eastwood constructs the film comes to a halt whenever Hoover faces off against a historical figure. A scene between Hoover and Robert Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) should be tense but comes off as stilted and strained. Later, both DiCaprio and Hammer appear under heavy old-age makeup, and the effect is distracting. Like Hoover’s life, the film’s larger arc works, but the details holding it together are weak.
Eastwood makes subtle nods to the present landscape, tracing the roots of political dirty tricks and partisan hackery back to Hoover. “J. Edgar” is not the flattering portrait Hoover would have preferred, but it’s not so damning, either. History is written by the winners, and, 40 years after his death, Hoover still seems to be in control of the story.
