REVIEW: The People Vs. Larry Flynt

The People Vs. Larry Flynt is a biopic about adult material publisher Larry Flynt (as the title so nicely points out).  Flynt made his name by publishing Hustler magazine, a nudy mag that took publicly sold pornographic material to levels that the already established Playboy didn't.  Hugh Hefner seemed to like the belief that Playboy was about sexual revolution and releasing the modern woman from the constraints that men and society had put on them.  Oddly enough, it was a magazine made by men, and made for men.  I would imagine that true liberation for women wouldn't be about lining the pocket books of males as well as satisfying their objectifying habits.

It is important to note that Forman isn't peddling a story that legitimizes the sexual exploitation of women, he is not creating a hero in Flynt, and it isn't a film about the first amendment.  It may, at first glance, appear to be along those lines, but this, in its truest form, is a tragedy.  Yes, people could look at the character of Larry Flynt, for good or for bad, and take away from his story a number of different things.  To me, Forman is not interested so much in the possible historical significance of Flynt, but the rise and fall of a person on the outside of culture.

Portraying Flynt is Woody Harrelson, previously known for playing small town boy Woody Boyd on the ever popular sitcom, Cheers.  After the show had run its course, it seemed like Harrelson was making some bold decisions to ensure that he would never end up being type cast as the innocent, soft spoken, and value guided country boy.  Roles in movies like the Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers and The People Vs. Larry Flynt (produced by Oliver Stone) made sure that nobody would think that Harrelson was going to ride the coat tales of Woody Boyd.  He took a massive risk in jumping into these types of roles, but it paid off.  Over the years Harrelson has been nominated for three Oscar movies and seems to make an imprint into whatever film he is a part of.

The portrayal of Flynt here is one of a business man, along with his brother Jimmy Flynt (Brett Harrelson), who runs a strip club and comes up with an unconventional way of marketing it.  That marketing venture turns into Hustler magazine, and we follow Flynt through all of the obstacles and battles that he had to fight to get his magazine into the mainstream.  As I said before, Forman is not making this a story of a hero, a trailblazing patriot who looks to teach a message on the first amendment to audiences.  Forman is simply using events and Harrelson's powerful performance to eventually let us see how success can create a personality that eventually must end up crashing back to earth.

Flynt's girlfriend, Althea, is played by Courtney Love.  It is an inspired performance, and through it I believe we get an idea that perhaps one of Forman's best gifts was soliciting master efforts from the acting talents.  He would go on to use Love in his follow up film, Man on the Moon (as well as using Norm MacDonald and Vincent Schiavelli in both films), another film about a person who may not have taken everything seriously and gets zapped back to reality.  Love's Althea is a charming free spirit, a person who grows in dimensions as the film progresses, becoming a force that adds to the ultimate tragedy of Flynt.

The story dynamics that Forman seems to most heavily focus on are the phases of life that Flynt goes through, from entrepreneur, to religious man, to contemptible and unrestrained personality.  By the time we get to the end of the film, Flynt no longer resembles anything that he had in the past, acting like a petulant man-child who refuses to understand the gravity of his circumstances or decisions.  Ultimately he must pay the piper, and, forgetting anything that we felt towards the Flynt character leading up to it, there is sympathy to be had here.  This person who seems to proclaim themselves larger than life and above the law is shown to cry and bleed, in a wonderful humbling of the character.

Why did Milos Forman choose Larry Flynt of all people to create a biopic around?  I doubt that it was based off of his legal struggles to secure his rights.  I believe there are much richer stories out there if that was the simple design of the film.  Perhaps Forman identifies with the person who is on the edges of culture.  That would explain why he chose to tell the story of Andy Kaufman next.  Whatever his reason for choosing Flynt, Forman shows that he is courageous.  It would not be an easy task to make a wide release movie about someone who would be despised by so much of the population.

There are untold numbers of movies about the dangers of fame and fortune.  The People Vs. Larry Flynt does not take the easy route in this endeavour.  It is an unlikely person, who evolves into an overly unlikeable person, and we are tied to his fate.  Forman shows that there is something relatable in this tale for any of us watching.  No matter what happens in life to make us feel vulnerable or invincible, we all have the same needs and desires.  We all have the ability to laugh, to cry, and to make others cry.  It is a gem of a story wrapped up in a package that could easily be discarded, but to do so would be to miss out on something special.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars