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TIFF 2015: Bryan Cranston Delivers Best (Film) Performance Yet in 'Trumbo'

Bryan Cranston in ‘Trumbo’

Since wrapping up Breaking Bad in 2013, Bryan Cranston has faced the gargantuan task of breaking away from meth-cooking cancer patient Walter White, one of the most iconic characters in TV history.

Cranston has cranked up his film work in recent years, with supporting roles in movies like Godzilla, Argo, and Total Recall. But the biopic Trumbo — which made its premiere Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival — marks his first major leading role, and it’s the best Cranston’s been outside of Bad’s dusty New Mexican landscapes. The actor is able to disappear beneath the horn-rimmed glasses, fantastic ‘stache, perpetually furled brow, and constant stream of witticisms from the mouth of famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

Directed by Jay Roach (best known for comedies like Austin Powers and Meet the Parents), Trumbo dramatizes how the scribe wound up blacklisted from Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s for being a Communist and how, after a stint in prison, he conspired to secretly churn out an endless cache of scripts under pseudonyms. While many of those scripts were written for a quick buck, two of them (The Brave One and Roman Holiday) would earn him eventual Oscars in 1975 and then posthumously in 1993, though Trumbo was never allowed to attend the ceremony.

As a whole, Trumbo is uneven — intriguing for sure, but lacking in emotional depth. We see him betrayed by his country (he was jailed despite not ever actually committing a crime) and his friends (like renowned actor Edward G. Robinson, played by Michael Stuhlbarg), but these pivotal moments, along with his big comeback, don’t carry quite enough heft. Like many biopics of the past (Capote and Ray come to mind) however, the film is driven by a go-for-broke performance, proving the perfect vehicle for Cranston to show he can nail the nuances of an eccentric real-life figure.

It doesn’t hurt that the actor is surrounded by a talented supporting cast: Helen Mirren stars as Trumbo’s adversary, the legendary gossip columnist Hedda Hopper; John Goodman plays low-budget studio head Frank King; and Diane Lane is Cleo, Trumbo’s ever-supportive wife.

Trumbo may not end up reaching as wide and eager an audience as Breaking Bad, but it warrants a look for Cranston’s excellent work alone. It could very well bring the four-time Emmy winner something Dalton Trumbo didn’t get to enjoy while he was writing gems all those years under a pen name: a trip to the Academy Awards.

Trumbo opens Nov. 6. Watch the trailer: