Fighting for the right to use his own name

IT'S not unheard-of for writers and directors to use pseudonyms on work they don't want to take credit for - but Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo did it because he couldn't use his own name. Branded a Communist sympathiser in the 1950s and cited for contempt by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he was blacklisted by the movie industry, jailed for 11 months and barred from plying his craft, so he resorted to using pseudonyms - and wound up winning two Academy Awards.

Trumbo is the story of one man's unwavering political convictions, his fall from grace because of them and his struggle to win the right to have his real name back up on the big screen. Directed by Jay Roach and written by John McNamara, the film is a by-the-numbers biopic characterised by uneven pacing and some outsized (if one-dimensiona…