‘Radical Wolfe’ Review: The Substance of Style

For journalism college students, it’s lore: The story of how the famed author Tom Wolfe bought a narrative about automotive customizers to Esquire, was hit by writers’ block and handed in a harried 49-page memo on deadline, which the editor revealed as is — minting a star and serving to to usher in a brand new development of literary reportage.

Wolfe was a mythmaker who gained a legendary stature, together with his white go well with, contrarian takes and irreverently vivid method with phrases. For him, model was a type of substance. This makes the brand new movie about his life and profession, “Radical Wolfe,” one thing of a letdown: Richard Dewey’s staid, by-the-book documentary can hardly match the aptitude with which Wolfe lived and wrote.

The movie adapts a 2015 Vanity Fair article by the author Michael Lewis, who seems as a speaking head alongside Wolfe’s friends, like Gay Talese, and family members, together with his daughter. Their interviews are slightly cursory, largely touching upon Wolfe’s Southern upbringing and incongruously gracious off-page persona, whereas the archival footage within the movie attracts closely on his tv interviews.

These provide a stunning view of a time when long-form journalism held high cultural billing, but there’s little right here that interrogates the person behind the phrases, his course of or his politics. Jamal Joseph, the author and former Black Panther, is made the only, thankless essential voice in a rushed part about Wolfe’s infamous New York Magazine piece, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s,” a mordant account of Leonard Bernstein’s 1970 fund-raiser soiree for the Panther 21.

Wolfe’s knack was for translating sights and sounds exuberantly into phrases. Jon Hamm’s actorly voice-overs of Wolfe’s writing, woven all through the movie, really feel impoverished in contrast — a grasp at a grasp by lesser artists.

Radical Wolfe
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. In theaters.