影片简介
1970年代的克里夫·艾尔文（理查·基尔）是个风度翩翩的中年男人，他是个作家，不出名但有才，画家出身的才女艾蒂丝·艾尔文（玛希雅·盖·哈登）就是看中克里夫的才华才与他结婚的。然而克里夫却不出名，出了本书却不畅销，他觉得是时候要做点惊天动地的大事了。

一天，克里夫向出版社编辑宣布了一件大事：隐居十年的大富豪、好莱坞大亨、飞行家霍华德·休斯先生授权让其写一本传记。霍华德·休斯这个大亨很古怪，他特别害怕跟人接触，他有着无上的权利与巨额的财产，也有着无数的怪僻，在许多人心中霍华德·休斯就是个神秘的人。克里夫这个名不见经传的小作家竟然能亲自采访到这个不愿意接触人的富翁，并被授权写传记，这消息震惊了全美国。

出版社与传媒记者们纷纷赶来找克里夫提供消息，这个小作家一下子就成为全美最受关注的人物。克里夫讲了一些关于霍华德的事情，同时提供了一些细节让所有媒体记者相信克里夫确实是霍华德的代言人。一下子，小作家名利双收，备受追捧。

"The Hoax" is based on a true story – how, in 1971, a struggling writer called Clifford Irving persuaded a leading American publishing house that he had obtained a series of unprecedented interviews with the ultra-reclusive,
immensely powerful, superstar billionaire Howard Hughes and that he was sitting on the book of the century – Howard Hughes's memoirs. There was a huge amount of interest in the book because Howard Hughes was also a
Hollywood producer, aviator, industrialist and playboy and he had been a recluse for 15 years. A million-dollar deal was struck and the book printing began. But then, Howard Hughes broke his silence to reveal that he'd never
even heard of Clifford Irving, and that the book was not genuine – it was "a fake"!

Clifford Irving is played by the actor Richard Gere, who has a star track record for playing attractive but extremely dishonest characters.

unprecedented:前所未有的,无先例的,空前的
The rate of growth was unprecedented.
这个成长率是前所未有的。

reclusive:隐居的;遁世的

recluse:隐居者

真的;非伪造的;名副其实的

track record:记录
文本


This is the film that you almost think does the trick, but doesn't quite! There are a whole lot of specious and rather spurious attempts to amp it up into a kind of greater resonance than arguably the particular story has. I mean, for instance, it's plugged into the Watergate Zeitgeist in order to give an extra charge of kind of epochal paranoia because we're in the 70s. And there's a whole lot of stuff with sort of secret agents and so on, which doesn’t quite add up. The strength is Richard Gere's performance.

if something 'does the trick', it has the necessary or desired effect 达到目的

'to amp it up' – to amplify something, to make something more exciting and meaningful than it really is 夸张，夸大

the Zeitgeist - the ideas of a particular time and place 时代精神，时代思潮

to add up – to make sense 说的通