Stalking James Dean

BUILDING a film around a decades-old photo-essay in Life magazine might seem like a stretch but when the subject of the shoot is a moody young actor on the cusp of stardom, and the photographer has a suitably bleak backstory of his own, a biopic based on their relationship - and those now-iconic photographs - begin to make sense.

Anton Corbijn - a filmmaker who started his career as a music photographer and proved that he knows what to do with star quality - certainly gets the message. Life, which depicts a few momentous months in 1955 for the actor James Dean, is a drama with serious arthouse pretensions, but it also lacks a sense of purpose - as if coasting along on the good looks and charisma of his actors will do.

Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) is an aspiring young photojournalist eager to move up the career ladder but he's stuck in a rut, reduced to taking pictures at Hollywood parties and red carpet events. Then he meets James Dean (Dane DeHaan) at a casting party and decides the actor has what it takes to get top billing. "What are you going to do with all this talent?" he asks Dean. "I think I'll just keep it," comes the nonchalant reply.