In 1955, while awaiting the release of East of Eden and vying for the lead role in Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean met Dennis Stock, an ambitious photographer who saw promise in the actor's agonized, sexy, thoughtful presence and convinced LIFE to commission a photographic profile despite his being largely unknown to the public. Life, directed by Anton Corbijn, dramatizes their interaction, including a trip to the Indiana farm where Dean came of age. It is a rather elegant film with a chic, potent mood, but it simply refuses to spring to dramatic life. The photographer-subject relationship is surely a personal topic for Corbijn, who rose to fame creating atmospheric, definitive images of, among other bands, Joy Division and U2 before a rewarding midlife transition to motion-picture directing (Control, The American), but profundity eludes him even as he provides characteristic aesthetic pleasure, and there is a sense his film inflates the personal significance of Dean and Stock to one another. And though they are too photogenic and intense to not draw one's gaze (à la, yes, James Dean), Robert Pattinson must contend with a thinly conceived role as Stock—protagonist as audience lens as cipher—and Dane DeHaan with arguable miscasting as Dean. I half wonder if they should have switched roles.

See another film from this year, The End of the Tour, for a far more insightful, poignant, and provocative depiction of the relationship (fractious, searching, symbiotic) shared by a journalist and the guarded artist he is interviewing.

C+

Does DeHaan, even for a moment, look like Dean in the film?

No.

The performances from the two leads is great but the movie is undecided between being a drama and a biography and fails to justify its existence in the end. Its also not fast paced or moving at any point and very pedestrian in its execution. Other than the two leads that give their best there is nothing much to recommend here. Some scenes are very well executed and the movie looks really good for its budget.

C+