Biopics have become a hot commodity recently, providing actors a showcase for transforming their personas into well known figures that can be readily compared to the character's archive footage. No one ever credits the Screen Actors Guild for recognizing subtlety with its Oscar nominations, but this biopic trend has supplied plentiful fodder of late. Witness last year's Oscar nods for personifications of well known personalities like Ray Charles, Howard Hughes, and Kate Hepburn. (Had Bruno Ganz starred in an American made film, we could have added Adolph Hitler to that list). The list could be expanded if you include lesser known historical figures, but the pattern of hitting the SAG over the head is apparent. To gain Academy recognition, give them flamboyance or a larger than life real character.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman delivers both in Bennett Miller's Capote. The veteran character actor, who first gained attention as the lonely obscene phone caller in Happiness, finally gets his chance at a leading role and brings fine nuances to the heavily conflicted character. Undoubtedly, you'll hear plenty of Hollywood buzz about how well Hoffman captures Capote's wispy voice, posture, and gestures, but Hoffman actually digs deeper and darker into the famous writer's psyche than the standard biopic.

The product of an unhappy marriage, the real Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1924 grew up with his aunts in Monroeville, Alabama next door to Harper Lee (who would portray him as Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird). The eccentric homosexual writer never fit in comfortably with Southern sensibilities, so he found work with the New Yorker magazine at the age of seventeen and soon attracted much attention in New York social circles with his flowing golden locks and opera cape. His distinctive high pitched voice proved no handicap in Gotham's party scene, and Capote became THE required invitee for all significant parties, as he was the most erudite and wittiest of conversationalists. Besides his magazine work, Capote penned a number of plays and novels before undertaking his masterpiece In Cold Blood. Regarded as arguably the finest non-fiction prose in American letters, this account of the brutal murder of a wealthy Kansas family became a classic and is often finds its way into collegiate literature syllabi.

Based on Gerald Clarke's biography, Dan Futterman rightly focuses the screenplay tightly around the Clutter murders and Capote's process of gathering material for his seminal book. Thus, we get intimate views of Capote's creative process that prove to be exceptionally revealing; and it's anything but flattering. There's a scene with the sister of murderer Perry Smith in which she tells Capote that he's only seen Perry's sensitive side, but she also KNOWS about his calculating murderous nature. A similar description could also apply to Capote's character.

And that's what makes Hoffman a true casting coup; he does shy away from portraying Capote's darker sides—the often manipulative monster who loses himself in his ambitious obsession. Attracted and curiously attached to one of the murderers (possibly in love with him), Capote nevertheless sees Perry (Clifton Collins Jr.) as a "goldmine." He persistently seeks Perry's confidence and friendship, yet he lies to him—at one point telling Perry that he hasn't written a word yet (despite scenes showing furious typing) and another time insisting that he doesn't have a title for the book yet (immediately after sharing his In Cold Blood title with the sheriff in order to gain access to police records). Later, when obviously piqued that his story is at a standstill, he tells Perry that he's going to walk out and never see him again if Perry doesn't describe what happened on the murder night (despite previously promising not to discuss this).

Even more chilling is a scene where Capote openly displays frustration that the Supreme Court could delay the ending to his book if they hear the case. He attends the premiere of the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, yet he's so wrapped up in his own work and what the Supreme Court might do that he can't even display formal courtesy to his longtime friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener, whose superb portrayal of the stable and sensitive writer also deserve an Oscar nod). Finding him drinking alone at the bar, she quickly sizes up his self-centered obsession and tactfully leaves him after asking what he thought of the movie; Capote then mutters "I don't see what the big deal is."

Most biopics follow set formulas that chronicle the major events of a historical character while setting a theme for his/her life. Not so with Capote. Much closer to the structure we find in Downfall, Miller's film crystallizes the key and most compelling part of Capote's life by dealing with the creation of In Cold Blood, but he goes even deeper than typical character studies by penetrating psychological layers that make the famous author as conflicted and memorable as the murderers. We see a man so obsessed with his work, that he sacrifices everything along the way—a possible love interest, lifelong friendships, his health and well being. Not content to merely inhabit the outside trappings of his conflicted character, Hoffman truly gets inside Capote's skin to create the most disturbing portrait of 2005.