Very convincing 'Hoax'

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"The Hoax's" tag line is telling: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

At first glance, it resembles the imagined mantra of Clifford Irving, the film's protagonist and the man who had a nation believing in the early '70s that he had obtained Howard Hughes' exclusive memoirs. (He hadn't.)

After comparing the film's depiction with the actual events, though, the one-line teaser takes on another meaning. Some scenes have been created out of thin air, and others have been embellished. Mr. Irving's real-life children are nonexistent, and the setting has been changed from where he actually lived (Ibiza, Spain) to a location that would facilitate more on-screen interaction with other characters (New York state).

It seems the filmmakers — including director Lasse Hallstrom ("Cider House Rules," "Chocolat") and screenwriter William Wheeler — weren't going to let all the facts of Mr. Irving's outrageous tale interfere with the making of their motion picture.

Fortunately for audiences, "The Hoax" delivers a well-acted and fascinating, if slightly fabricated, final product that will have viewers marveling at the lengths to which Mr. Irving (both original and 2.0 versions) went to pull off this con and how the heck he got away with it so long.

Though the film offers theories about Mr. Irving's motivations (and possible impact on President Nixon and Watergate), its message ultimately seems more universal; at its core, "The Hoax" is about how one man's quest for notoriety, the public's thirst for celebrities' inner secrets, and human willingness to trust can cause a little white lie to spark an all-consuming white-hot wildfire.

When Irving (a permed Richard Gere) lights the match, he's down on his luck; McGraw Hill has just rejected his latest manuscript. (In reality, he had a four-book deal, which makes him much less sympathetic.)

Desperate to stay relevant and gainfully employed, he concocts a pitch the publisher can't refuse: Howard Hughes' biography, based on "exclusive interviews" he has conducted with the reclusive tycoon. Everything hinges on the writer's belief that Mr. Hughes is too detached and delusional to come forward and reject the book's validity.

Publishing executives wonder why the billionaire would choose a lesser-known writer for the project and express other doubts, yet Irving continues to produce "handwritten letters from Mr. Hughes" and other "evidence" that he's the real deal.

Soon the lie is a massive, nearly million-dollar beast being fed by McGraw-Hill employees, the media, Irving and the author's team of co-conspirators: his wife, Edith (Marcia Gay Harden), and friend and fellow writer Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina). At one point, even Mr. Hughes himself appears to be in on it, in an attempt to put the squeeze on President Nixon.