Sometime during the early Sixties as related in this film, author Truman Capote gives a lecture in New York where he reads several passages from his as of yet unfinished novel, "In Cold Blood." The writing is so magnificent that you cannot help but be impressed by it as well as being inspired to read the book. As a result, my wife immediately went to two different libraries to rent the book, but she found it to be in such high demand that it is currently unavailable.

That is what seeing this movie does to you: You want to find out more about this story and the individuals enmeshed in this tale of woe in which there are no winners. Ever the perfectionist with a near photographic memory, Capote brags to fellow novelist and lifelong friend, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), that he doesn't need to take notes as, "I have 94 per cent recall of all conversation. I tested it myself."

In November of 1959 Truman was already a famous author of two well received novels including "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which in 1961 was made into a movie starring Audrey Hepburn. He is a social butterfly of the first order who frequents all the premiere nightclubs of Manhattan. A gifted story teller as well as a writer, Truman constantly regales his friends with story after story to keep them entranced by his charm and personality. It is clear that he loves to be the center of attention.

Lounging comfortably late one morning in his bed in a townhouse he shares with his partner, fellow author Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood), Truman reads an article in the front section of the New York Times about the brutal murder of all four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on the night of November 14th.

He calls William Shawn (Bob Balaban), the editor of the New Yorker Magazine, and asks him if he has read the article. Shawn replies in the negative, but Capote perseveres and suggests that this might make for a great article for the magazine. Soon he is on his way to Kansas comfortably ensconced in a sleeper car in one of the many cross country passenger trains of that era.

He has also invited his dear friend, Nelle Harper Lee, to join him in this trip. For the two of them, leaving the Manhattan social scene may prove to be a pleasant reminder of the slow southern life they once led as children growing up together in rural Alabama.

What he took away from the flat Kansas countryside near Holcomb besides his literary masterpiece would leave him a ruined man, unable ever again to complete a novel. He sunk further into alcoholism and eventually died from health complications brought on by his heavy drinking. It is almost as if he became so enmeshed in his story that he seems to have sold his soul to the devil to finish his novel.

(Regrettably, the movie never does make it clear what attracted him to this particular murder scene in the first place instead of the many others that must have occurred somewhere else around the country at the same time.)

One of the most appealing aspects of this movie is the portrayal of the long time friendship between Truman Capote and fellow novelist Nelle Harper Lee. There is a wonderful story here that would be well worthy of a movie in its own right.

Nelle Harper Lee is the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird," a novel that was made into a movie (one of my all time favorites) in 1962 starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. He considered his portrayal of a devoted widowed father and the highly honorable defense attorney in a purported rape case to be the signature role of his lifetime.

But the real star of that movie was little "Scout" Finch, played by young actress Mary Badham. The entire movie is seen through her eyes as the story is in actuality the semi-autobiographical tale of Nelle Harper Lee's own childhood. She grew up in Depression, Alabama, which was changed in name to the small fictional town of Maycomb. (At Lee's personal request, Gregory Peck went to Depression and interviewed her father, Amasa Lee, who died shortly thereafter during the filming of the movie.)

The connection to this film is that of young "Dill" Harris (John Megna), a young orphan who frequently comes to visit his aunt in the movie. She just happened to live next door to the Lees/Finches. "Dill" Harris became a great friend and a playmate of the Finch kids during these visits. It is amazing later to find out that this name is the pseudonym that Lee gave to her childhood friend, Truman Capote. It's a small world indeed that a small Southern town with the odd name of Depression would produce two world class authors at the same time.

Lee and Capote remained personal friends for life after their meetings every summer in Depression, Alabama. She is always referred to elsewhere as "Harper Lee," but he never called her anything else but "Nelle," her now unused first name from her childhood.

Capote, the slick city boy with the strangely high pitched, nasally voice, could not initially use his fame to ingratiate himself with the Kansas locals, so he found the services of Harper Lee, who accompanied him on his first trip, to be invaluable for this purpose.

Later Marie Dewey (Amy Ryan), the wife of the sheriff, Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), involved in the Clutter case, turns out to be a great fan of his novels. She helps to introduce him to the other citizens who had known the Clutters. She also allows him to meet Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.), one of the killers, since he was being held at the time in a "woman's cell," which was actually placed inside the Dewey living quarters upstairs from the sheriff's office.

The only problem that ever occurred between Capote and Lee was that their relationship suffered during the period of time when Lee's 1960 novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." was published to great acclaim. This novel was later made into the classic 1962 movie which took home four Oscars, including one for Gregory Peck.

Capote was somewhat envious of the acclaim that Lee received since he had not yet finished his own novel and his ego was such that he hated to be upstaged. He was also suffering the terrors of the damned since his quick trip for a proposed magazine article about what happened on the night of November 14, 1959 had by now morphed into a life defining opus that had gone on for four long years without resolution. All the while this urbane raconteur was trapped like a fish out of water in the bleak and featureless plains surrounding Holcomb, Kansas.

The fault was partly his own since he had found a lawyer to file endless appeals of the convictions of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), the two men who had been convicted of brutally killing the four members of the Clutter family in the small farming town of Holcomb, Kansas. (This movie was actually filmed in Manitoba, but the geographical verisimilitude is striking.)

It was all a very self serving and deeply cynical effort to curry favor with Perry Smith, with whom he had formed an intense emotional bond due to their similarly troubled childhoods. Early on Capote remarks to Smith that, "Since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong."

He goes on to tell Smith, who by now is in a jail cell on death row, the sad story of his upbringing as he has already guessed that Smith had suffered a similar fate. Truman never knew who his father was and he tells us of his mother, describing her as a near prostitute who moved from hotel room to hotel room to be near the man of the moment. She would leave Truman locked in the hotel room while she went out on her "dates." Terrified and alone, he would bang on the doors and scream for help, but none ever came as she had always left instructions that no one was ever to open the door. Eventually she abandoned him altogether.

Smith opens up and admits to a similar fate, also due to a single, abusive mother. His upbringing was so horrific that two of his three siblings committed suicide and the third, a sister, lives in Oregon and hasn't spoken to Perry in more than ten years.

During the interminable appeals process, Truman visits her in Oregon and asks permission for a picture of the two of them as children. Both kids appear to be happy and well fed. She tells him to take the entire album as she has no use for it anymore. She confesses to Truman that her brother "could kill you as look at you."

Another point which this movie sadly fails to address or even mention verbally is the fact that Smith was an artist of considerable talent who sketched everything that he saw. You see his sketches made with only the use of a pencil and you think,"Wow! This guy has real talent."

It's a shame that he never used it. Lee asks Capote point blank late in the movie if he is in love with Smith. Capote replies that he doesn't know how to answer the question. After a moment of thought he quietly says, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he went out the back door and I went out the front." Capote escaped his fate. Perry Smith didn't.

Throughout the appeals process Capote lies and connives and schemes with everyone to achieve his goal of a novel with an ending, a finality, which for him means that Smith and Hickock must either hang for their crimes or go to prison for life. He schmoozes William Shawn, his editor, for more time and more money as the months drag on into years. Completed sections are sent back to Shawn, who instantly recognizes their greatness.

He throws a wad of cash on the desk of the prison warden (Marshall Bell), and tells him to use the money as he sees fit for any incidental expenses with the single proviso that he is to be allowed to have free access to Perry Smith as often as desired.

He settles on the title, "In Cold Blood," because of its "manliness," as he puts it to Sheriff Dewey, but he later lies to Smith that he has selected that condemning and judgmental title. He spends month after month wheedling his way into Perry's confidence only in the hope of gaining a confession that will tell him what actually went on inside the Clutter family home.

Perry's confession finally comes and Truman gets what he needs. Perry refers to them as "nice people" who had been picked because of an apparently false rumor that there was $10,000 hidden in the house. In a spate of mindless violence without any compassion or sense of guilt, the two thugs brutally murdered Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenaged children by firing a shotgun into their faces as they lay tied up on their beds. This is after they had spent hours on a fruitless search throughout the house for any hidden money. At the wake the four victims had to be displayed in closed coffins because there was nothing left of them to see.

Capote had to know. "How much money did you get?" Perry couldn't remember or didn't want to answer right away. "Well, how much?"

"Somewhere between $40 and $50 dollars" finally came the sad and pathetic answer.