Trumbo

Trumbo does a great job showing the injustice of the blacklist throughout the late 40's and the 50's. I've always been interested in the time period because, in the way I have always looked at it, the persecution of communists seemed so incredibly unconstitutional, so much so that I always thought I was missing a part of the story; luckily (or unluckily), I wasn't missing anything and my assumptions about the status of the blacklist are actually quite true. Through Dalton Trumbo's story, audiences can see the greater implications of the blacklist and the persecution of communists in America at the time of the Cold War.

The people I was most excited about seeing in the movie was obviously Bryan Cranston, but also Louis C.K. I don't think I've ever seen Louis C.K in anything other than his show, so I was really interested in seeing him play a character (as opposed to just himself) that is actually pretty serious.

Casting was amazing in this movie. In the credits at the end of the movie there were actual photos of characters in the movie and it was incredible the resemblance so many of the actors and actresses had to their characters. They also made Bryan Cranston age incredibly. The movie takes place over around 15-20 years and the makeup people do a great job of aging him to the times. I thought everyone played their respective roles very convincingly.
I was personally really interested and invested in the story. I really love learning about that time period in American history; there's just so much you can pull from that time period, and the Red Scare is a period of history that I've always wanted to understand. I think this movie did a really good job at telling the story of Dalton Trumbo, but also explaining what was happening at the time and fleshing out both points of view (however biased the movie may have been).
The one thing that did not make much sense to me was that the movie began to show the audience how Trumbo was beginning to turn to Benzos and alcohol to fuel himself when he was trying to frantically write a whole bunch of scripts to keep his family alive. They showed the downward spiral his relationship with his family had taken, however, once he realized he was alienating his family and he fixed the relationships, the movie did not touch on what happened with the Benzos and the alcohol abuse. All the audience could really assume was that once he reconciled with his family he probably stopped? But then why would they introduce that plot-line only to not circle back to it at some point. That part left me a bit confused but otherwise I loved it.

I really enjoyed watching Bryan Cranston play this character. I've really only seen him in Breaking Bad and Godzilla, and now this. So all the things I've seen him in he plays some sort of super smart guy. And I love things all Louis C.K so it was pretty damn cool to see him act in something completely different. It was interesting and definitely something you don't see everyday. I always love leaning about someone who I didn't know about before so these kind of movies always pull me in.