Infamous covers just enough new ground to be interesting, but it will always suffer by comparison.

Even judged on its own, though, McGrath's movie feels slightly misjudged.

Jones wears the title role so well that you simply forget he's acting, which wasn't true of Philip Seymour Hoffman last year when he gave a performance that deserved its Oscar. If Jones fails to pick up an Oscar nomination, he should pitch a hissy.

British actor Toby Jones is so physically right in the role, you'll think Capote is playing himself.

When Infamous is on, it's really on. It's much more celebratory of Capote's unequaled, larger-than-life spirit, which can be a joy to watch.

Unlike its coolly detached brother, Infamous is right in your face, as amusing in flashes, and annoying for stretches, as any shallow little tyke.

Infamous is a well-made movie about a fascinating character, and if it weren't essentially a repeat of last year's Capote it would likely be one of the hot flicks in filmdom right now.

McGrath focuses on Capote's own divided soul, where massive insecurity co-exists with great courage.

In the early going, Infamous can be generously entertaining and quite funny. But McGrath gradually blends serious ingredients into this comic souffle of chatter and gloss.

Infamous is one of the funniest sad movies in recent memory.

What begins as a mischievous frolic gradually becomes a sad tale about a sad man.

In the end, Infamous turns out to be the third-best movie built around the murders of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kan., in 1959.

Ultimately, as a cautionary tale about fictionalized journalism, it's a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Rarely do battling productions -- these two were shot mere months apart -- result in equally valid films, but that's the case here.

The picture gives off a tone of arch stylization that plays as artificial, overwrought and off-putting.

A riveting, well-made picture for the few of you who still remember those quaint, antiquarian objects called 'books' and recall the vanished age when they were really important.

Bullock's warm, wise and penetrating presence as the To Kill a Mockingbird author -- Capote childhood friend, assistant and conscience -- is the soul of McGrath's sumptuously art-directed (by Judy Becker) and scored (by Rachel Portman) film.

Infamous isn't able to convey the great sense of guilt and responsibility Capote wrestled with -- he needed a man who trusted him to die in order to finish his book -- becoming instead a more superficial and pedestrian tale of doomed love.

Toby Jones, the British actor with the impossible task of following an Oscar winner, gives a stellar, idiosyncratic performance as Capote.

Jones has a few moments of resonant pathos near the end and the film is entertaining enough.