"What if I told you that there's a movie in theaters right now directed by one of America's greatest working filmmakers starring an actor he's worked with many times, giving a revelatory performance of the sort we've never seen him deliver before? Would that sound exciting? What if I told you it was a biopic? Does that word dim the excitement a little, maybe a lot?"
"How toxic has the word biopic become? To disavow the word is now a cliché almost as predictable as, say, a flashback to childhood trauma to explain adult behavior. " This movie is ... not a biopic," director Marielle Heller told Entertainment Weekly while offering a preview of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, her film starring Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers."
“Biopic” now often evokes cliché cradle-to-grave storytelling, reducing excitement for films that take selective or inventive approaches to lives. Some filmmakers and actors reject the label to emphasize films centered on relationships or literary lenses rather than comprehensive life narratives. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood examines a relationship between Lloyd Vogel and Fred Rogers instead of offering a cradle-to-grave account. Blonde represents Marilyn Monroe’s life through Joyce Carol Oates’ highly fictionalized 2000 novel. Oppenheimer resisted the biopic label and invoked other genre models, such as the heist movie and courtroom drama, as more apt descriptions.
Read at Slate Magazine
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