Life

In Life, directed by music photographer Anton Corbijn, whose foray into feature films began with 2007’s Control, a black and white tribute to Ian Curtis, Corbijn turns from the streets of industrial Macclesfield to the world of 1950s Hollywood. James Dean emerges from East of Eden a bankable young star but his refusal to cooperate with Warner Studios puts his chances of getting the Rebel Without A Cause role at risk. Dennis Stock is assigned to shoot a photo essay of the actor for Life magazine and spends most of the film trying to convince Dean to play the game.

Robert Pattinson as Stock is less the usual conflicted brooder seen in recent Cronenberg collaborations and more of a hanger-on, a guy anxious about his career and the son he never sees. It’s a subdued and sometimes frustrating performance, though his Benzedrine high is something to behold (“A Benny for Denny!”).  Dane DeHaan’s Dean is really an imitation, something too many biopics struggle with; the hunched shoulders, the carefully-styled quiff, the way he moves his hands when smoking: it’s a charming act but it gets in the way. Dean’s return to his small town farm in Indiana is where the film gets interesting, if only for a while. There are moments with his Quaker family, driving tractors in the snow, reading comic books with his little brother, that appear natural, less contrived than those scenes in New York, and Stock’s awkward desperation forces actual dialogue and eventual confrontation between the two. Finally the relationship at the heart of the film is realised when they attend a dance at Dean’s old high school and the actor is surrounded by awed teenagers, but up until then it’s insubstantial.