THE HOAX. Dir Lasse Hallström. 2006

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This doesn’t sound like an interesting premise for a film; an unsuccessful writer faking the autobiography of Howard Hughes and getting caught, but it’s gripping, and true.

Clifford Irving’s breathtaking audacity is so outrageous and implausible that you have to keep watching because you can’t believe he’ll pull it off, and he nearly does. Richard Gere plays Irving with what looks like a dodgy black perm and he looks so unlike the Gere we know that he manages to convince.

Although the film is about the trickery involved in fooling his publicist, the publishers and their legal advisors, it is also a close study of friendship and relationships. Irving’s friend joins him rather reluctantly in the venture, which is a sort of literary hussle, but fails to put a brake on the increasingly complicated and unnerving fraud, while Irving’s wife has concerns about his easy lying in his private life.

Irving’s obsession with Hughes grows, and threatens to disrupt his life; he becomes almost deluded and paranoiac. Hallström weaves in sinister scenes which provide terrific tension, making the film a literary thriller. Irving comes to believe that Hughes wants to use him as a tool to topple Nixon’s corrupt government, so what started out as a desire to write a publishable book becomes a deranged mission to take on the White House and the CIA, to tell the truth and make a difference to the world. Was Irving going off the rails or was he a tool and a scapegoat? Hughes' power combined with our suspicion of CIA activities at the time of the Nixon administration, intimate that it could be possible.

Whatever is the real truth, Irving and his close relationships suffer from his casual deceit and betrayal and the film is a fascinating study of a man whose love of story, lively imagination, agile thinking and determination are really impressive. It's a pity his talents didn’t work to his, and his loved ones, advantage. His confidence, fearlessness, and talent as an actor suggest a bold, courageous or desperate man, and make for a fascinating character study. Not sure if he's likeable though.

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