J. Edgar

J. Edgar is a 2011 American biographical drama film based on the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, directed, produced and scored by Clint Eastwood. Written by Dustin Lance Black, the film focuses on Hoover's life from the 1919 Palmer Raids onward. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, and Judi Dench. It marked Adam Driver's film debut. J. Edgar opened the AFI Fest 2011 in Los Angeles on November 3, 2011, and had its limited release on November 9, 2011 followed by wide release on November 11. The film received mixed reviews from critics, although DiCaprio's performance was widely praised, and it grossed $84 million worldwide. It was chosen by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2011, while DiCaprio earned a nomination for a Golden Globe Award and both he and Hammer earned Screen Actors Guild Award nods. Plot The film uses a nonlinear narrative, alternating between J. Edgar Hoover's role in establishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and his later years trying to safeguard it against perceived threats. As a frame story, the aging Hoover narrates the events of the Bureau's early years to a series of agents he has assigned to ghostwrite a book about it. In 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer survives an assassination attempt by anarchists and assigns Justice Department employee Hoover to a division dedicated to purging radicals. Helen Gandy rejects Hoover's awkward advances, but becomes his personal secretary and confidant. By arranging to make the anarchist Emma Goldman eligible for deportation, Hoover creates legal precedent to deport numerous other radicals. Following the Palmer Raids, Palmer loses his job and his successor, Harlan F. Stone, appoints Hoover as director of the department's Bureau of Investigation. Hoover has Gandy create a confidential file in which he collects incriminating information on people in power.