After mourning some of the most anticipated films of 2020, leave it to Netflix to heal our wounds. The very first trailer for David Fincher’s Hollywood Golden Age period piece, Mank, has come sledding in. (Spoiler?) The director’s first film since 2014’s Gone Girl, Mank follows the writer behind Orson Welles’s classic Citizen Kane, the man who clacked out “Rosebud†on a typewriter himself, Herman Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman). A judgy alcoholic, Mankiewicz “races to finish the screenplay.†In gleaming black-and-white and in a cloud of cigar smoke, the social critic attempts to put William Hearst’s life into focus without putting a target on his back. Welles is played by The Souvenir’s Tom Burke. Amanda Seyfried plays the doe-eyed actress Marion Davies, William Hearst’s mistress, whom Charles Foster Kane’s second wife was allegedly based on. Emily in Paris star Lily Collins goes Hollywood, playing Mankiewicz’s secretary, Rita Alexander. The soundtrack is helmed by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who have already claimed the O in their REGOT (just missing a Tony) for The Social Network, but probably wouldn’t mind a second win. Citizen Kane won just one Oscar, for Best Original Screenplay, back in 1942. Given the state of movies this year, Mank very well may out–Citizen Kane Citizen Kane in the awards department. Mank is anticipated in select theaters this November and on Netflix December 4, 2020.
