Clouseau's Last Mystery

By James Poniewozik

The physically nondescript Peter Sellers (a pair of glasses, really, with a man attached) was known for vanishing wholly into his characters. He disappeared into Inspector Clouseau, Dr. Strangelove and Being There's Chance the Gardener. But did he have a character of his own? It is a credit to HBO's The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (Dec. 5, 9 p.m. E.T.) and its star, Geoffrey Rush (Shine), that this TV biopic sometimes makes you want to know. We meet Sellers as a young radio comic supported by a loyal wife (Emily Watson) and driven to want more by his lovingly pushy stage mum (Miriam Margolyes). After starmaking film work with directors Blake Edwards (John Lithgow) and Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci), he sheds wife No. 1 and lands bombshell bride Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron).

It's a story that has launched a thousand network-sweeps movies--star with parental issues, beloved by the public but cruel to those closest to him, wildly successful but never satisfied. The HBO difference is in execution. Most notably, Rush, like Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, steps into several roles, delivering monologues in the characters of Sellers' father, his mother, his wife, Edwards and Kubrick.

Rush's performance is undeniably a tour de force. (Oscar winner plus HBO movie plus multiple roles--they probably engraved Rush's Emmy months ago.) And Life and Death is stylistically ambitious, but it never becomes more than a style exercise. As Sellers did, it desperately throws stunts at you to keep your attention. When it sheds light on Sellers' craft as an actor, it is fascinating. But above all, this is the story of a man his first wife lambastes as a "bore of a little boy." Life and Death finally proves her right. --By James Poniewozik