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Not quite, in the case of Love Liza.
Director Todd Louiso's film, based on a script by Hoffman's playwright brother Gordy Hoffman, is serious, thoughtful and ambitious. But it doesn't pay off, which makes the emotional torment it depicts almost painful to endure.
The movie begins with Hoffman, a creative Web site designer in a mid-west U.S. town, retreating into a void after his wife commits suicide. Bates, as his mother-in-law, is also so overwrought she is of no use to him or to herself. Neither knows why their loved one decided to exit so dramatically.
But there is a clue: A sealed letter sitting under the pillow in the matrimonial bed Hoffman now refuses to sleep in. He finds he simply cannot open that letter now.
In the ensuing 90 minutes of movie, Hoffman goes on a self-indulgent, self-loathing and self-destructive journey to deal with this tragedy. In that time, he still cannot open the letter. Nor can Bates persuade him to, so she starts to get almost as unbalanced as he becomes.
On his journey, Hoffman recoils in horror at a co-worker's romantic advances, becomes irresponsible, loses his job, starts sniffing gasoline, flies model airplanes, terrorizes friends, and heads into an abyss, all because he thinks something in the letter will blame him for the suicide.
That there is some shred of hope at the end of the film is a testament to Hoffman's subtle powers of persuasion as an actor. But the journey is so relentless, and so slow to develop, that the film loses some viewers. Including me. I know there are people who admire this film, and I understand why, but I could not find the patience to do so.
Gordy Hoffman's script, winner of the best screenplay award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, is filled with spaces for his brother to simply "be" on screen. Philip Seymour Hoffman can "be" on screen better than most actors because he is so expressive, so multi-layered, so extraordinarily real as a human presence on celluloid.
But, in this particular story, his sense of being is an assault on the audience. It is difficult to actually allow him to be as reckless as he becomes in his self-pity. At one point, he shares his bottle of fuel with two neighbourhood teens.
That act is a crime that the character can never put behind him. It destroys the sympathy factor. And it sets Love Liza into a path of Hate Hoffman that ruins the film. At least for some of us.
(This film is rated AA)