Review: The Hoax

By Emma Carroll

I’ll admit, in some ways I am not the best person to be discussing The Hoax. I know very little about politics in general, let alone the politics of the early 1970’s during the Nixon administration. I know the gist of things involving Nixon’s impeachment and the Watergate scandal but details are another thing all together. I had never heard of Clifford Irving before and I was unaware that this movie is based on his book. And everything I know about Howard Hughes is from the movie Aviator. In fact, when I left the theater I had to call my father to ask him if all of this really happened. I went into this movie totally blind. However, if you look at it from the opposite perspective, this makes me the perfect person to discuss this film, as it’s own entity, just as it is.

The Hoax as I mentioned is based on the book by the same name by Clifford Irving. As it turns out, Irving was a great con man, though that is not clear in the film. His person is re-created by Richard Gere (Chicago), who does a wonderful job playing two characters: Irving and Irving’s vision of Howard Hughes. The Hoax is actually an autobiographical depiction of Irving’s attempt to con the publishing giant McGraw-Hill into believing that he had been contacted by reclusive multi-millionaire Howard Hughes to contract Irving to write his autobiography before he died – an endeavor that ultimately landed him in prison for 14 months. In essence, the idea of this is entirely unbelievable. Howard Hughes had not contacted anyone by anything other than memo, and no one outside of his own close trusted staff. But that in fact was what made Irving’s scheme plausible. Hughes would not be available to comment in person either for or against Irving’s story, so all Irving had to do was imitate him, in writing and in voice. He enlisted the help of his best friend and author, Richard Suskind (Alfred Molina) in his machinations, along with his wife Edith, played by Marcia Gay Harden.

As his ruse progressed he eventually found himself becoming Hughes. He played the part while recording pieces of the man’s life story onto audiotape, dressing like him and even drawing a mustache on his face while he spoke as if he were Hughes himself. Irving referred to Mr. Hughes as Howard like they were old pals, though not even Hughes’ most trusted associates used anything other than his surname. Irving even began to believe his own forgery so much that he started having hallucinations.

On another plot level, and what interested me most (and also confused me most!), was how everything involved in the development of Irving’s book tied into the politics of the time. The film takes place during the final months of the Nixon administration. As Irving is building his story, in the background the country is in turmoil. I will not go in to detail in case the reader does not know the historical facts. But the revelation at the end of the film is quite the shocker! It was this that had me leaving the theater asking, “are these events real?”

But I haven’t yet said how I felt about this movie. As someone who was ignorant to the facts, I was enthralled. Richard Gere brought a real life to the character, true or not. I do love conspiracies, and that is what this was. The story itself was of course fascinating, and the acting and direction made the truth of it seem both real and fanciful at the same time. After all, unbelievable reality of these events is the stuff movies are made of.