The voice of Truman Capote is so distinct that, should one attempt to imitate it for public performance, it must be done with great skill and confidence, a la Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote and Toby Jones in Infamous. The same goes for Tennessee Williams, who’s yet to receive that level of onscreen attention, but whose particular inflections are just as singular.

As such, it’s a losing battle for director Lisa Immordino Vreeland to recruit Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto for audio parroting of the authors’ respective letters in the documentary Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation — especially when they’re so overshadowed by the real deal via wildly entertaining and probing TV interviews with David Frost, Dick Cavett, and others.

Capote and Williams are so entrancing on their own that their unfiltered observations largely compensate for the distracting work by Parsons and Quinto, which gradually becomes less grating as the film’s true stars take over.

But the archival interviews wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without Vreeland’s intelligent structure, which is both chronological and works in each man’s thoughts on a range of subjects, all the while building a friendship with a dramatic arc that rivals the artists’ own creations.

Grade: B. Not rated, but with adult themes and language. Available to rent via fineartstheatre.com

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