Mank (2020)

What an addictive romantic drama it is, mixing sentimentality with pure rapture.

A wonderful throwback about a flawed figure who took on a hostile era in Hollywood with choice words and major chutzpah.

The story then becomes less a forensic accounting of a masterpiece than a bittersweet ode to a certain slice of old Hollywood: part love letter, part cautionary tale, and still somehow a mystery.

Though forged in a meticulous 1930s backdrop that merges historical detail with the style and tone of that era, “Mank” is hardly a playful throwback. Fincher has made a cerebral psychodrama that rewards the engaged cinephile audience in its crosshairs, but even when cold to the touch, the movie delivers a complex and insightful look at American power structures and the potential for a creative spark to rankle their foundations.

I think the most productive way to look at Mank, a new film about Hollywood in the 1930s and ‘40s, and about the screenwriter of a particularly famous and iconic work, is to understand it as Fincher’s most playful work.