Don't listen to the negative reviews

A Major Disappointment

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I've read at least four biographies on Dean. This movie strays from what is known and takes too many unnecessary and less interesting liberties. Its also way too short. Franco does the best job he can, I suppose. Unfortunately, Jimmy was a pure genius performer that can never be brought back or even summoned up by an actor now. I mean, who could portray Brando or Phoenix really? I think the best chance of making a great film about Dean would be to have one written purely in fact. There are enough facts to do this! (Not some poorly prepared script that really doesn't show Deans true story) Also, in my mind..a biographical film would have to be animated with some new technology to look great and come close to any authenticity. And as they took Brandos voice and created a new performance for him in the last Superman movie,maybe they could do so with Dean in another biographical picture. I think this would be the best chance at a great telling of Dean's story. It would be almost as if it were coming from Dean himself if it were done correctly and with the highest of standards. There wouldn't be another actor really standing in the way. No disrespect to Franco. I think hes grown into a good actor. I applaud the decent attempt on Francos part. I applaud the producers for their attempt as well. Making a film is very hard. Making a good one seems damn near impossible. I do however think the producers here were lazy in their excavation of Dean. I do understand that this is a made for TV movie and is going to have limitations. I just don't understand how they could have chosen to tell his story without really diving into his story. The truth of it is way better than some of the fiction that this film conjured up. :^)

Franco aced Dean's walk, voice, mannerisms! Now every time I watch Franco, it's like I'm watchin' Dean! (Is that a good thing?!) Anyway, I learned a lot about Dean's life in this bio. He truly was a tortured soul! You had to pity him & you'll understand why when you view this film. I bought it & have watched it a lot.I read that after this film, Franco won a Golden Globe Award (which he said he gave to his mom) & the offers just kept pouring in. After viewing this film, DeNiro hand-picked him to play his son in City By The Sea, which Franco promptly jumped at! (I don't blame him!) May Franco's career continue to shine as he continues honing his craft, ridding himself of his shyness & giving us ever more characters to view & identify with!

The James Dean movie might have been done much better had it been a feature film rather than one susceptible to the limitations of a made for TV movie. That is, where the filmmakers have to be wary of time and probably, content constraints. What we have as a final product, despite a nice performance by James Franco as the legendary James Dean, is little more than celebration of the man as a mythical pop culture icon. Even the more "authentic" emotional moments such as the rocky relationship between the young actor and his estranged father are so tightly bound in overt dramatizations rather than something more lifelike. Everything about James Dean, as portrayed here, seems less like insight into his background and his rise from a poor, Indiana teen to iconic actor who's life was cut short mid-success, and more like James Dean as a piece of staged dramas only adding more to creating a mythical creature and less to explaining a real person.Consider, for example, if you were a viewer who had known little about James Dean. Perhaps you had watched a few movies or, like Elvis, had always noticed him as the "understood" representation of juvenile disillusionment and delinquency (more the latter than the former, since our culture celebrates rebellion more so than simple dissatisfaction). But after having watched this film, what do you really learn about James Dean? I think the other dilemma of making a film about James Dean is that he was so young and still in the process of rising to fame when he died, that there doesn't seem to be many significant points of his life that can be stretched into an hour and a half film. Here, we do get a little, but not really much to play around with. Other than seeing bits about the girl at the studio he meets and becomes friendly with, the Italian actress he lives with for a while, befriending Martin Landau, and the relationship with his father, there really isn't much to go on. Not knowing much about James Dean, I don't know if there was much in his young life that could merit filling the time for a movie. It may be that those who were closest to him that could really give the trivia about his background have passed on. It seems that, if he was as distant as they claim him to be, maybe it was hard to get the story behind the man even by those who knew him in real life. But perhaps this is the reason why the subplot with his father seems so entirely forced.Unfortunately, there is a lot of style, but very little substance. And it may not have entirely been the fault of the filmmakers.

My only negative comment about the film is that I thought the various Hollywood personnel of the time (early 1950s) could have been somewhat more realistically impersonated (for a better job see, for example, "RKO 281"). I suppose in real life Dean did display an aura of shyness and inattentiveness, and performed cartwheels and pratfalls in the presence of others. POSSIBLE SPOILER, although I'm sure that just about everyone reading this knows how Dean died. The automobile accident at the end is not exploitative but is depicted in vague and extreme slow motion. Had I not known better I would have assumed early on in the film that Dean would die from lung cancer, as he is shown in almost every scene with a cigarette dangling from his lips.