In 1940, film studio RKO 1940 hires 24-year-old wunderkind Orson Welles under a contract that gives him full creative control of his movies. For his first film, he calls in washed-up alcoholic Herman J. Mankiewicz to write the screenplay. That film is "Citizen Kane," and this is the story of how it was written.... (Full plot summary below)
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In 1940, film studio RKO 1940 hires 24-year-old wunderkind Orson Welles under a contract that gives him full creative control of his movies. For his first film, he calls in washed-up alcoholic Herman J. Mankiewicz to write the screenplay. That film is "Citizen Kane," and this is the story of how it was written.
Leave your thoughts about Mank.
| Time OutPhil de SemlyenThe arguments over whether Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made will rage on forever. But the greatest film about Citizen Kane – and just about any other movie – has definitely arrived. David Fincher’s eleventh film is a lavish love letter to old Hollywood in all its glory, cynicism and wild extravagance. |
| The TelegraphRobbie CollinMank feels like both a film for the ages and one hauled up from them: a forbidden tale grave-robbed from the Hollywood catacombs. |
| Austin ChronicleRichard Whittaker"Write hard. Aim low," Mank is told. Instead, Fincher filmed low, aimed for the brain, and hit a deadly shot. |
| EmpireIan FreerShot in stunning black-and-white, Mank delivers Hollywood in a multitude of greys. Built on a towering performance by Gary Oldman, it’s smart, sophisticated, by turns thrilling and difficult, and amongst Fincher’s best. |
| ABCPeter TraversOscars all around. Led by a life-of-the-party Gary Oldman as the boozehound screenwriter of ‘Citizen Kane’ and a sublime Amanda Seyfried as a tycoon’s mistress, this funny and fierce landmark from David Fincher peels away at Hollywood’s Golden Age. The result is a gorgeous piece of cinema that ranks with the year’s very best. |
| The Associated PressLindsey BahrIt’s simply telling a story about a man behind so many of our movie memories and making a new one in the process. And it is, without a doubt one, of the year’s very best. |
| Total FilmJamie GrahamAfter 30 years of gestation, Mank emerges one of the great films on the machinations of Hollywood |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawWhat an addictive romantic drama it is, mixing sentimentality with pure rapture. |
| Vanity FairRichard LawsonMank taps into a vein of feeling that reaches farther than mere family tribute. The film also serves as a political cri de coeur, one that inspires as much as it dismays. In making a film that’s sort of about the making of another film, Fincher has many metatextual layers to work with, which he does with trademark precision and unexpected gentility. |
| The AtlanticDavid SimsFincher didn’t set out to make a movie about today’s politics; he’s telling a universal story about trying to change an industry (and a world) in which every system seems freighted with inertia. Mankiewicz isn’t quite a radical, nor is he especially principled. Still, in trying to make sense of his experiences with Hearst through a Hollywood narrative, he transforms a familiar tale about shattered idealism into a revolutionary work of art. |
