Life

Starring Robert Pattinson in possibly his best work yet, as photographer Dennis Stock, Life charts Stock's relationship with James Dean, played by Dane DeHaan. The film is framed around the iconic images of Dean published in Life magazine in 1955, and the lengths Stock goes to to get those very shots, including an impromptu visit to Dean's hometown of Indiana. 

Dean died only months later in September 1955, and that trip to Indiana would be the last time Dean made it home. The scenes played out in Indiana are the most rich and nuanced, delving further into Dean's enigmatic persona and capturing the "tortured artist" among family, rather than on a Benzedrine high. He is caught between the demands of fame and his own urge to be artistically pure, as is played out on screen by DeHaan, although sometimes his way of speaking borders on caricature.

The film is saved from becoming dense or preachy by the wit and deftness of Luke Davies' (Candy) script as well as Anton Corbijn's direction, the visual language of the film both true to its time period and the sense of mood in Life.

But what really ties the film together is Pattinson and DeHaan's onscreen chemistry: Pattinson's Stock is troubled too and he learns from, and leans on, Dean and vice versa. Their performances centre the film, keeping it from becoming just an artful sprawl.