{"id":718016,"date":"2026-06-06T01:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718016\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:29:10","slug":"the-revisionist-review-dustin-hoffman-handily-revives-a-weary-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718016\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Revisionist’ Review: Dustin Hoffman Handily Revives a Weary Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s one real reason to see \u201cThe Revisionist<\/a>,\u201d and he\u2019s right there in the title. Alex Vlack was awfully lucky to get Dustin Hoffman to center his narrative feature debut, which otherwise strains to reach its ambitions.<\/p>\n

Hoffman plays David, a legendary writer described, alternately and accurately, as \u201ca national treasure\u201d and \u201ca royal pain.\u201d No one is more torn between these two descriptions than his son, Jacob (Tom Sturridge), who has been trying to write a biography of his father for years. David has no interest in sharing his complex story, or his many secrets, much to Jacob\u2019s intense frustration. He\u2019s been hoping that a biography of his famous dad will not only boost his own career, but shed some light on his tortured life both as a child and now, as he\u2019s married to fellow writer Elise (Alison Brie).<\/p>\n

When Jacob runs into his old friend John (Andr\u00e9 Holland), Elise has an idea. David has always been dismissive of Jacob\u2014who writes ad copy instead of fiction\u2014but loves John, who was published in the\u00a0New Yorker\u00a0right out of college. So perhaps, Elise suggests, John can get David to open up, record their conversations and then pass them on to Jacob.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this plan falls apart immediately\u2014or, more specifically, as soon as John secretly calls the\u00a0New Yorker\u00a0promising to write David\u2019s story himself. And that\u2019s just the start of the subterfuge, since everyone seems to have ulterior motives of one sort or another.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\""She\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Holland (\u201cMoonlight\u201d) is especially strong as the mirror to a convincingly sullen Sturridge (a two-time Tony nominee, most recently for \u201cSea Wall \/ A Life\u201d). Selfish and magnetic, John is, ultimately, everything the insecure Jacob can\u2019t be. But Vlack, who also wrote the script, truly has no clue what to do with the one woman in his film. He tries to convince us\u2014and himself\u2014that she\u2019s the real center of the story. In actuality, she spends most of her time reacting to the men, or staring pensively into space.<\/p>\n

But if the energy drops considerably when she and Sturridge are onscreen, it explodes whenever Hoffman turns up. He shouts and swears and drinks and moans, and brings the movie back to life by very happily chewing every scene he\u2019s in.<\/p>\n

David is capricious, dismissive and even cruel to his son. And what compounds Jacob\u2019s pain is that no one else can even see it\u2014they\u2019re all happy just to be in the presence of this thrilling, charismatic character. With Hoffman in such playful form, it\u2019s easy for us to relate.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Lizzie\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s one real reason to see \u201cThe Revisionist,\u201d and he\u2019s right there in the title. Alex Vlack was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[363,49,48,189162,75,337,259895,253843],"class_list":["post-718016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alison-brie","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dustin-hoffman","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-the-revisionist","tag-tribeca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}