Mank Parent Guide

Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), better known to his contemporaries as “Mank”, is every bad stereotype of a Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter – an outrageous flirt, a dissolute drunk, and an absolute madman with a pen. His latest project, an ambitious epic he’s working on with the young radio sensation Orson Welles (Tom Burke), is set to put him at odds with one of the most powerful men in America - newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). But Mank’s conflict with Hearst didn’t begin with the script for Citizen Kane: the roots of that problem stretch back to the early 1930s…

Mank is a man who had more chances than he earned and as many breaks as he could buy – in between bouts of near-lethal drinking and gambling to the point of bankruptcy. His story is every bit as dramatic as that of Charles Foster Kane, or indeed, William Randolph Hearst, but not nearly as luxurious. Mank has all of Kane’s charisma and personal magnetism, but almost none of his subtlety. It’s precisely that inability to moderate his own personality that leads to his personal tragedies.

If you’re concerned about the “R” rating, you can be assured that this is relatively mild as Restricted films go. There are five sexual expletives, three of which occur in the same scene near the end of the film. Maybe the largest concern is the frequent drinking and smoking – both of which were common at the time, especially for a man portrayed as an alcoholic. Mank’s drinking has serious consequences, both personally and professionally. Beyond that, the only problem I can think of are a handful of risqué jokes, none of which are particularly explicit. If you happen to find a teenager with a passion for classic filmmaking (and if you do, be sure to tag and collar them before releasing them back into the wild), this isn’t a wildly unsuitable choice.

Citizen Kane is a classic for many reasons, but Herman J. Mankiewicz’s script is arguably the most influential. David Fincher has taken a story about that script and used his not insignificant directorial talent to pay homage to the brilliant filmmaking of Orson Welles. This is an intriguing look behind the curtain on a film which will long outlast any of the people involved. Of course, Mank will never be able to compete with the original article, but I don’t believe that that is Fincher’s intention. I suspect this is more an act of homage than one of self-aggrandizement. Although if Fincher starts building a stately pleasure dome, I may have to revise my opinion.