Last quarter 'true story' Oscar bait underwhelms

I can be a tough critic to please sometimes, but I get especially grinchy during the holiday crunch when awards season group-think forces me to seek out prestige-courting biopics and true-to-life narratives for which I'd gladly have waited. In the ten days since I first set eyes upon Todd Hayne's exquisite Carol, I've struck out thrice with other Globe/BFCA heavies Trumbo, The Danish Girl, and The Big Short; All of them capitalizing on year-end kudos, whether or not they should.

Trumbo is especially unfortunate. True Hollywood stories are of inherent interest to me (and many a cinephile, I should imagine), so it really says something when I despair at how unengaged I was by Jay Roach's shapeless biopic of the legendary screenwriter, who was infamously blackballed by McCarthy-era witch hunt politics. The man himself (likely Oscar nominee Bryan Cranston) would have shuddered at the screenplay's lack of structure and payoff. The film's strong SAG haul, particularly the Best Ensemble nomination, is baffling. Sure, there are a handful of droll impersonations in there -- David James Elliott's John Wayne and Dean O'Gorman's Kirk Douglas are aces -- but everyone is play acting instead of screen acting. Yes, there is a difference. The lone exceptions are Elle Fanning and Diane Lane as the key female figures in Trumbo's life, his daughter Niki and his wife Cleo.