Joe Gould's Secret

(USA)

The story of Joseph Mitchell -- who showed up for work one day at the New Yorker, sat down at his desk, and suffered writer's block for 32 years -- is natural material for actor-turned-director Stanley Tucci. Mitchell was noted especially for a story he wrote about Manhattan barfly and raconteur Joe Gould. Played in an unwashed, scenery-chewing performance by Ian Holm, Gould is the artist as anarchic fool who cadges from the arty Greenwich Village crowd on the strength of his ongoing project and his zesty egotism. As Mitchell, Tucci is as mild-mannered and top-coated and happily-familied (Hope Davis plays yet another supportive wife) as one of his publication's dour cartoons, the antithesis of Gould but also, perversely, his complement. The success of Mitchell's story about Gould puts pressure on both to produce -- and in the end, perhaps, Mitchell realizes his most hideous link with Gould is that neither has anything to say. Tucci's movie does, however.