Mank (2020) review

Confined to a bed following a car accident, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) - along with assistant Rita (Lily Collins) and a truckload of booze - puts together the script for what would become Citizen Kane, while the film flashes back to his personal involvement with Big Time Hollywood Types: Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), Hearst's mistress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), etc.  I understand that this was a labor of love for Fincher, but he's far too cold and mechanical for this sort of thing: it's a drama-free and rather drab movie that manages to make an incredibly compelling time in early Hollywood and drains every droplet of life out of it.  Oldman is a great actor, but having every line from him try to be a "zinger" gets old fast, and even though Fincher claims to not think Welles was not that talented, why does he try to replicate his style?  There's also a political subplot tucked in there involving Upton Sinclair (Bill Nye, of all people) that I'm guessing is supposed to be a metaphor for Emperor 45 and Bernie Sanders, but it really doesn't fit with the rest of the subject matter.  I hate to say it, but RKO 281 with Liev Schreiber did it better ... albeit from a different angle.