Mank

Director David Fincher's black-and-white period drama MANK is the behind-the-scenes story of how screenwriter Herman J. "Mank" Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) collaborated with wunderkind filmmaker Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write the first draft of the Citizen Kane screenplay. Welles, via friend/frequent collaborator John Houseman (Sam Troughton), set up Mank -- who was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident -- in a country home with a personal typist (Lily Collins) and a nurse. Mank is given a couple of months to turn in a draft; he draws inspiration from recollections of his career working for MGM, as well as his friendship with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and Hearst's girlfriend, actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried). Based on a screenplay by the director's late father, Jack Fincher, this is an "inside Hollywood" drama that pays tribute to a gifted, if haunted and substance-dependent, writer.