When Hollywood tackles history sometimes the result is an uneasy mixture of what really happened and what might have happened.  This is certainly the case with Emperor, which spotlights the dilemma facing General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) when he arrives in Japan soon after the conclusion of World War II.  His mission is to begin the rebuilding of the defeated country, but first a determination must be made whether to prosecute Emperor Hirohito for war crimes.

This situation was extremely complicated, and Peter Webber’s film goes to great lengths to explain why.  In that regard, although the resulting film is sometimes dull and even boring, I appreciate its thoughtfulness.  Movies too often simplify history to black and white when the reality is that, to quote directly from the film, “there are a million shades of gray.”

MacArthur has no time for an investigation, so he assigns his protege General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) to recommend whether the Emperor is to be charged, and to do it within ten days.  Fellers is a Japanophile, who, according to the movie, is smitten with a Japanese girl (Eriko Hatsune) whom he met at college.  Ultimately it is his remembered discussions with her father (Toshiyuki Nishida) before the war that steer Fellers’ recommendation.  Was this relationship real?  I don’t know.

I just don’t know how much credence to give to this version of events.  While there is dramatic credence to the technique of using Fellers’ past to inform his verdict it comes across as strained and clichéd, and certainly not objective.  Perhaps that is the movie’s point: that such a decision could not be made objectively, but required a subjective perspective, first from Fellers and then from MacArthur himself during a climactic meeting with Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka).  That meeting scene is the best thing in the movie, putting everything into place and finally looking toward the future instead of sifting through a largely unknowable past.

The biggest obstacle for my enjoyment of the movie, other than its relative dullness, is the performance of Matthew Fox.  I never found him convincing as a general; he seems too young and too casual to properly inhabit that rank.  Being that the bulk of the film rests on his shoulders, this is a problem.  By using Fellers as its dramatic lynchpin I think Webber’s film undermines itself.  And that is a shame, because this is a film that genuinely tries to illustrate important history.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  15 March 2013.