Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this film isn't for kids. It showcases difficult concepts and images, including mass murder, rape, homosexuality and homophobia, and the sensationalizing effects of media. Images include the Clutter family crime scene (bloody bodies and furniture), as well as several reenactments of violence: shooting, smothering, and an unnerving scene in a prison cell, where inmate threatens visitor. Execution by hanging shown explicitly, as is a passionate, illicit kiss in a prison cell. Characters make repeated references to sex and rape, some joking, some menacing. Characters smoke lots of cigarettes and drink often. Both prisoners and Manhattan socialites use foul language ("f--k" most frequently).
Sexual
Content
Truman's stories and jokes tend to be bawdy; he behaves flamboyantly (small-towners mistake him for a woman); Truman sends Perry porn magazines in prison (glimpse of covers); frequent sexual slang; references to Dick's desire to rape the Clutter daughter before he killed her.
Violence
Explicit images of the crime scene (bloody mattress) and Clutter family bodies (bound and brutalized); shootings occur in flashbacks and out-of-frame (guns pointed off screen); one disturbing scene shows Perry threatening Truman with rape in his prison cell; Dick's hanging at the film's end is explicit and harrowing (Perry's takes place off screen).
Language
Frequent uses of "f--k" (30+); plus other profanity ("s--t," "bitch," "a--hole," variations of "c----cker").
Social
Behavior
While the protagonists are charismatic and compelling, they are (with the exception of Harper Lee) also arrogant, ambitious, and deceitful, disdaining their social "inferiors" the story follows Capote's eventually tragic efforts to "fit in" with the wealthy socialite crowd.
Consumerism
Not applicable
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
Upper-crusty 1950s-style social drinking and drunkenness (martinis, gin and tonic, scotch, champagne); reference to father "drinking himself to death" frequent cigarette smoking, some cigars.
