Life

What motivated the filmmakers to cast a boy with a boy voice for James Dean??? That actor is ALL wrong and watching that boy play Dean for two hours is torture. The Life photographer is an ineffectual bore and "Life" as a title is just a really bad idea in part because the script is pretty lifeless.

A movie about James Dean stands or falls by the portrayal of the man. Everything else is secondary to capturing that unique mesmerizing person.

I am a straight male, yet I remember the first time I googled that name and started browsing his photos. There was something there completely out of the ordinary. Strength with fragility, sadness with mischievousness, rebellion resting in the moment. Its like watching young Marlon Brando or Ryan Gosling in a movie like Drive, there is something extraordinary there your brain cant define but can understand.

Dane DeHaan, who I don't know outside of this movie, could probably portray Justin Bieber just fine, but playing James Dean requires a different beast of an actor all together.

Potentially this could have been the most interesting work from Anton Corbijn, as he is himself a well-known portrait photographer. The story is about Magnum photographer Dennis Stock (Pattison) convincing a reluctant upcoming James Dean (DeHaan) to follow him to make a series of portraits. As you might know, Magnum set new standards in photography and Stock in his famous series contributed to a completely different view on portrait photography of stars: natural setting, confrontational, honest and direct.

During the movie, a bond grows between the two, as Dean turns out to be an atypical Hollywood star ignoring the rules set out by his superiors resulting in several confrontations. Stock largely ignores his duties to his former wife and their child and becomes obsessed by Dean's idiosyncrasy. The second part is the most interesting as it almost deconstructs Dean's life and character: Dean comes from a farmland family of Quakers, likes local poets and is fond of his background and actually despises stardom. Stock is first able to shoot pictures in New York (you probably know the famous photograph) and in Indiana.

So what are the downsides: the pacing is too slow, the editing certainly not perfect and the most important trap: Corbijn as photographer is too much in love with the story, finding details relevant that are actually not that relevant. The question keeps popping up: Why does this matter? Life fails in a way as a mood piece, but is still a relatively good and stable character drama as the deconstruction works well.

Maybe both Pattison and DeHaan are too light to pull this off more convincing, but one role is certainly amazing: Ben Kingsley as Jack Warner is so spot-on you will be remembering the character despite the limited screen time.

James Dean. When we hear that name what do we think of? Youthful icon. Screen legend. Rebellious. Cool. All have been posted to the name of Dean over the decades since his premature death in 1955 but how many of us would mention the words, shy, vulnerable and complicated. The silver screens rising star came out of nowhere, had a fleeting moment in the sun and then as quickly as he appeared, he was lost to us, dying at the eternally youthful age of twenty-four.

There was very little mentioned about the film, 'Life', it just seemed to appear so I was a little unsure about its content. Were the producers trying to tell us something that we didn't know? Putting this aside though, I was still intrigued by a semi-biographical tale of a Hollywood legend whose name has survived the test of time despite only ever starring in three films. After a journey that involved a train excursion and a bus trip, I managed to make it to one of the few theatres that has included 'Life' in their weekly line-up. For a time I thought I was going to be the only person brave enough to see it until a woman walked in and the audience doubled in size and became two.

The first thing that leaps out at me is the quality of the cast. A film that features Ben Kingsley, Robert Pattinson and Joel Edgerton couldn't be that bad but again, perhaps the produces know something that we don't. Anton Corbijn brings a distinguished resume to the directors chair and has been able to deliver a delicate view of a young star who was much more than just the moody, difficult new kid on the block that ruffled the feathers of Hollywood's power players. The audience gets to see a genuinely vulnerable James Dean brought back to life with a stand out performance by the little known Dane DeHaan.

DeHaan's execution of the immortal screen icon was always going to make or break the production. A brave decision for Corbijn to make but an inspired one as DeHaan completely transforms himself into James Dean right down to the 50's stars mumbling vocals and uncomfortable nature. Pattinson portrays Life Magazine photographer, Dennis Stock, who is responsible for capturing Dean in his raw and natural poses that have now become recognisable around the world. Unfortunately Pattinson is totally left in the shadow of DeHaan's portrayal and at times looks out of his depth trying to act as the second lead. Ben Kingsley is absolutely superb as Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers Studio who has a difficult time in trying to rein in the rebellious Dean. Edgerton adds a rounded cameo as Stock's boss but all eyes are on DeHaan as he moves from scene to scene totally immersed in his character.

With a set that transports the viewer back to the golden years of Hollywood when studios owned their acting stars and everybody sucked back the soothing smoke from a death stick, the film highlights just how cutthroat the movie making business was and still is. Dean was a prodigious talent but didn't want anything to do with the regimented routines that were thrust upon him by Warner. He felt most comfortable around people he trusted and he felt most at home on the farm in rural Indiana.

This is a good glimpse into the life of an immortal Hollywood icon whose talent could have taken him anywhere.

This review is going to mainly going to be about the Portrayal of James Dean and not the other elements of the movie so I'll get right to it. To put it frankly, I didn't buy Dane Dehaan as James Dean. The resemblance just isn't there. This is a role where looks matter and Dane Dehaan can't really fill the James Dean 'silhoutte' or bring the stature and good looks needed to pull off James Dean. The characters James Dean played in his movies were all studs because James Dean was in fact a total stud. No offense to Dane Dehaan but we've never seen him play a stud before. Most of his roles are teenaged characters who are troubled, quiet and kind of physically unintimidating and prone to getting bullied . Not exactly James Dean material.

We didn't really get James Dean here. It was basically just watching Dane Dehaan play an aloof young guy who sounds kind of like Kermit the frog and acts like a stoner burnout. You can't really get edgy and charismatic James Dean from Dane Dehaan. As good as an actor the guy is he just couldn't really pull it off for this role.

The rest of the movie isn't worth saying much about even though good efforts were made all around. With the right actor playing James Dean this could have been a good movie maybe even a great one depending on the performance. If you stuck around till the end they show the pictures of the real James Dean which was the real pay off of the movie for me.