~Thursday~ Watching the movie, Flawless, was prompted by the recent (February 2, 2014) death of Philip Seymour Hoffman (PSH), after a discussion between Bob and me about which of his movies we'd seen.

In what will come as a surprise to no one who knows Bob, he's seen way more of them than I have. And he owns several of them. Although I've seen several of the films listed in this filmography, I only remember Hoffman's performances in two of them: Capote and Doubt.

Flawless was not one of his films that I'd seen.

Here is a synopsis, from imdb.com:

An ultraconservative police officer suffers a debilitating stroke and is assigned to a rehabilitative program that includes singing lessons—with the drag queen next door.

The official trailer:



My thoughts about this movie:

• I thoroughly enjoyed it, although critically, it was generally believed to be "formulaic" and contain "uneven performances."


• In the Fresh Air interview, Philip Seymour Hoffman On Acting: An 'Exhausting' and 'Satisfying' Art, which I'd heard shortly before watching this film, PSH talked about the challenges he had playing a drag queen, which made it even more interesting to watch.


• Wikipedia's description of the reception of the movie says this about PSH, which I totally agree with: "Hoffman was praised by critics for his ability to avoid clichés in playing such a delicate role.^[3] Todd VanDerWerff praised the warmth of his portrayal of Rusty, commenting that 'Hoffman’s work is quiet, moving, and humanistic, and it provides the film with a core Schumacher doesn’t remotely earn. No matter; this is another movie worth seeing almost entirely for the titanic work Hoffman does near its center.'^[3] Roger Ebert highlighted Hoffman as 'one of the best new character actors', remarking that he was 'able to take a flamboyant role and find the quiet details in it'.^[4]"


• It's always interesting to watch someone who is extremely homophobic gradually have a change of heart as they meet and eventually befriend "a real life gay." De Niro did a good job in portraying such a transformation in his character, New York police officer, Walter Koontz.

Have you seen this movie? If so, what did you think of it?