Best Actor 1983: Tom Conti in Reuben, Reuben

Tom Conti received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Gowan McGland in Reuben, Reuben.

Reuben, Reuben is not a particularly good, but not really an overly bad film about a famous drinking Scottish poet.

Tom Conti's performance is positioned a bit strangely to begin with. Firstly he is made up with his rather unique hair, as well as his unique, and than he is made up to look like a walking corpse. In his opening scene, which unfortunately for the film and his performance is his best scene where he is reading some of his poetry at a women's literary gathering. Conti makes his very unique look and manner work very well in this one scene, showing a slick charm of the poet, and his incredible ease in talking about his work and other literature as well as life. That is the peak of his work though the film itself goes downhill from that. This as the film is a little too cute in its portrayal of a poet without embracing itself as a true comedy or a proper drama. He starts living in a rural town and interacting with the various characters there, not quite colorful characters since it is a mostly dramatic film with small comedic elements, so they are not funny characters, but perhaps underwritten characters, played in an overdone manner for the most part, Roberts Blossom is always appreciated after all.

The downturn of the film is then just Gowan interacting with the townsfolk as this sort of cad character, who basically is playing into himself as a character. Conti does earn the sort of flamboyance he brings into the role. This in portraying the sort of cheerfulness of the man in public who also likes to proudly brandish himself in a way. Conti delivers that definite charisma and enough of a wry energy in his own work of a guy living out a fantasy of it in a way. This whether he is messing with the locals or seducing them. Conti makes it sort of this big game for him, and does so in a rather effective way. This is because he does very much balance that by what is on the inside. What is on the outside is all a game in Conti's portrayal. He's a man trying to keep a game going for as long as he can even as he slowly moves towards a possible suicide. Conti depicting a guy out on a limb who is ready to fall off with the biggest bright smile on his face.

This is as Gowan mostly uses his joking exterior to hide a deeply sad man on the inside. Well I know this anyways because well he does look like a corpse most of the time, but also as we see some of the strictly personal scenes of a brutal despair. Although I think this dynamic could've been better explored script wise, Conti does effectively portrayal the seething somber depression of the man in private. This just a pure sadness represented in his breakdowns that are without pomp or circumstance, rather it is just a sad man. That is until his final scene where he thinks over his life quite effectively of  man just digging his whole, though with an attempted respite of seeming more genuine humor, that unfortunately is the darkest joker played on him. This is a performance that shows some striking moments, particularly in the opening scene and closing scene. Unfortunately in between the material given to him is often repetitive. Conti's duplicity of the soul of the man is well realized, though I do wish there had been more compelling material throughout for him.