The Aviator   

Howard Hughes: Leonardo DiCaprio

Katherine Hepburn: Cate Blanchett

Ava Gardner: Kate Beckinsale

Noah Dietrich: John C. Reilly

Juan Trippe: Alec Baldwin

Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: Alan Alda

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Written by John Logan

I wash my own hands pretty frequently, but to let the fear of the unseen become a paralyzing force is something entirely different.  In The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s latest effort, we get a glimpse of what was to become of Howard Hughes, the eccentric recluse.  But the film focuses mainly on his life before he gets to that point, thankfully, because the story of Howard Hughes is certainly an interesting one. 

The heir to his father’s drill-bit invention, Hughes used his wealth to make something more of himself in both the aviation and film industries.  He made a few film classics, such as Hell’s Angels and Scarface, and frequently fought the MPAA over its standards of sex of violence in pictures. 

However, it is safe to say that he made more of a name of himself with his dalliance in aviation (hence, the title of the movie).  He built fast planes and broke speed and distance records flying them.  He bought TWA and fought Pan Am and the government for the right to fly internationally.  He was always thinking ahead to what might be the next innovation in flying. 

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hughes, and it is another excellent performance.  It would be easy to turn Hughes into a caricature of an obsessive-compulsive freak, but the nature of Hughes’ downfall is handled with the right amount of subtlety.  It wasn’t a condition that severely hampered him early in life, but became more pronounced with age.  DiCaprio gives him the air of a manic genius, and we’re offered flashes of the inner workings of the mind of a man with no time to think.  His brash business style – buying millions of dollars worth of planes or an entire airline – was the product of someone lacking both patience and the ability to relax.

Hughes had two key relationships with two Hollywood starlets, Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), and each is portrayed in the movie.  Blanchett is letter-perfect as the enigmatic Hepburn, who proved to be Hughes’ match until she met the love of her life, Spencer Tracy.  His relationship with Gardner proved to be a little more complex as his paranoia got the better of him.  Both actresses shine in their respective roles as caretakers of a man they cared for, if not loved (and on a side note, is there anyone in Hollywood lovelier than Beckinsale right now).

The rest of the supporting cast is just as strong.  John C. Reilly is good as Noah Dietrich, the strait-laced Hughes’ right-hand man on the business side of things.  There’s another excellent supporting performance by Alec Baldwin as Juan Trippe, president of Pan-Am Airlines, and Alan Alda provides the perfect blend of smarminess and greed as Maine Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, who drags Hughes into Senate hearings over his wartime contracts. 

The film is absolutely beautiful and appropriately hearkens back to the era in which Hughes became famous.  The lush nightclub sets and the bold aerial footage provide wonderful backdrops for his life.  There are a few Scorsese moments in the film, but they all work well within the framework of the movie (unlike the bloated Gangs of New York).  The flash-forwards, the snapshots of Hughes’ mind, and the substance of his paranoia are all presented here in effective ways.  

In the end we are left with a portrait of an oft-misunderstood individual.  Hughes was a pioneer in many ways.  His child-like adoration for the movies led him to early success in Hollywood.  But his real passion lied in building and flying planes, and it would be hard to imagine this world without Howard Hughes’ mark on it.  With The Aviator, Scorsese and DiCaprio serve their subject well by presenting him as the mad and eccentric innovator he really was.