Mank
Movie, 2020, The 2020s, Set in Writing Citizen Kane
Mank is #12 of 13 in release order and #12 of 13 in chronological order in the David Fincher.
The story
1930s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane.
Mank recap
Mank (2020) follows screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz as he races to write Citizen Kane in 1940, with flashbacks to 1930s Hollywood. David Fincher directs from a script by his late father, Jack Fincher, shot in black and white. Gary Oldman plays Mank, a witty alcoholic laid up after a car crash, who dictates to his secretary Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) at a ranch in Victorville, under a tight deadline from Orson Welles (Tom Burke). The flashbacks show how he came to know the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his partner, the actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), through MGM and its boss Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard). In 1934 the studio makes fake newsreels to defeat Upton Sinclair's socialist run for governor, and a director who made them later kills himself. Mank's brother Joseph (Tom Pelphrey) warns him that the script will enrage Hearst. Released by Netflix, it is Fincher's eleventh feature, after Mindhunter and before The Killer.
Mank ending explained
Mank ends with Herman refusing to give up credit for the script. Marion asks him to soften it, and he will not. Welles offers him money to stay uncredited, but Herman, who had agreed to that in his contract, now demands his name on it, and Welles storms off. A flashback shows Herman, drunk, insulting Hearst at a party, and Hearst throwing him out with a story about a monkey and an organ grinder. Mankiewicz and Welles share the Oscar for the screenplay.
Post-credits scenes
No. Mank has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Where to watch Mank
Mank is streaming on Netflix in the US.
Ratings
IMDb 6.8/10, Rotten Tomatoes 83%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Mindhunter, before The Killer.
- Chronological order: after Mindhunter, before The Killer.
Cast
- Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz
- Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies
- Lily Collins as Rita Alexander
- Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer
- Tom Pelphrey as Joseph Mankiewicz
- Sam Troughton as John Houseman
- Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg
- Tuppence Middleton as Sara Mankiewicz
- Tom Burke as Orson Welles
- Joseph Cross as Charles Lederer
- Jamie McShane as Shelly Metcalf
- Toby Leonard Moore as David O. Selznick
Directed by David Fincher.