[8/10]
This is a lengthy dramatization of the Zodiac Killer investigation of the 1970s, clocking in at over two hours and detailing every little step with extreme attention to detail. For a long while, there’s little in the way of human drama, as all is subsumed to an avalanche of facts, but it’s kept lively by way of stylish direction from David Fincher and top-tier performances from a star-studded cast. In the central roles are Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist Robert Graysmith and Robert Downey Jr. as crime journalist Paul Avery, both working at the same major San Francisco newspaper, as well as Mark Ruffalo as Dave Toschi, the lead detective on the Zodiac case. Gyllenhaal is intriguingly off-kilter as a well-meaning but obsessive amateur sleuth, with a few weird tics that take on a new meaning as the character is increasingly consumed by his obsession with finding the Zodiac. Downey Jr. provides the same sort of performance expected from him, essentially turning Avery into another variation on his usual role. Ruffalo reportedly does a highly effective job of imitating his real-life counterpart’s mannerisms, and elevates the role with a mixture of moderate charisma and creeping exhaustion.
Those are the emotions that prevail across all three characters, albeit across different time frames and in different ways; this is a single-minded, detail-driven true crime story, but in doing so it makes a highly convincing case for that mountain of inconclusive evidence being the road to madness. The script ultimately falls back on archetypical scenes of troubled marriages, declining careers, and mental breakdowns, and often neglects to deepen what happens to these people beyond a broad outline. But it compensates formally: the torrent of evidence is compelling simply as a mystery, as it provides enough puzzle pieces to promise solvability. When the evidence inevitably fails to add up, that uncertainty becomes highly evocative of the mounting frustration brought on by the case. Fincher arguably dwells too long on the murders, especially in the first scene; I don’t particularly care about the personal lives of the victims, though these scenes are effective in developing an atmosphere of unease.
Obsession with the case increasingly has a negative effect on the protagonists, and as lead after lead goes nowhere, it increasingly it becomes clear that it might be best for them to cease their pursuit. As a consequence, the later scenes where Gyllenhaal continues his investigation can seem somewhat belaboured; it’s most likely that none of the people he runs into are going to kill him, and as his investigation grows increasingly futile, it becomes increasingly difficult to be invested in the outcome. And yet, the uncertainty still hangs over the film: suspicion falls onto a projectionist at the exact wrong time in the film for anything conclusive to come up, and yet his presence is still threatening simply because his guilt is as likely as anything else at that point. Perhaps that's why, after so extensively revealing the folly of this obsession, the film still retreats to an easy answer.
Spoiler alert
Arthur Leigh Allen was probably not the Zodiac killer; even the closing credits admit that DNA evidence cleared him. But that, alongside the nagging lack of conclusive evidence, seem like drops in an ocean; the final image is Allen being pointed out of a lineup, and the closing credits fixate on him even after revealing he was cleared. It seems almost like he was implicated so the obsessed can be at peace. The contradictory nature of the ending, which dwells on Allen even when the evidence rules him out, is definitely provocative, but I’m not entirely sure how much the ambiguity is deliberate. The ending seems determined to paper over the nagging facts that undermine his guilt, an event which seems almost like the film backing down from the theme it had spent so much time developing. Graysmith was ultimately rewarded for his self-destruction with a factual error. But if it’s a misstep, it’s an oddly relevant misstep; if settling for a flawed answer is the consequence of obsession, then there’s something to be said of a film which is structured after that.
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