Alternate Best Actor 1975: Richard Dreyfuss in Inserts

Richard Dreyfuss did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying The Boy Wonder in Inserts.

Inserts comes off a bit like a play that wasn't adapted all that well, even though it isn't based on a play, but it does hold some interest at the very least as one of those 70's films that would only ever have been made in that decade.

One of the most intriguing facets of the film is the central performance by Richard Dreyfuss during his heyday as a rather young leading man. He fittingly plays a boy wonder here as well though in a different profession in the film industry. Here we find him as a director already left behind by the film industry, due to the transition to sound, leaving him to resort to making pornographic films in his large isolating mansion. Immediately to his credit is Dreyfuss's ability to be convincing in creating the very idea of the character. This being this young man who is already spent and more or less done with life. This weariness is wholly captured in his worn eyes, and whole physical demeanor that feels like that of a man who has stayed up all night for the past 10 years. One can feel tired just looking at Dreyfuss here as he makes this man who has wholly burned out that exudes from his very being at every moments he is onscreen. Although we don't know the exact journey that lead him down this place, though we do get a few details, Dreyfuss immediately creates a vivid sense of a long painful history that brought this boy wonder to a rather dark place.

Dreyfuss is an interesting performer with a natural energetic talent, even if it isn't always used perfectly, but this is just right for the boy wonder here. Dreyfuss is fascinating in that he manages to create both a man at the end of his rope, but still realize this idea of the wunderkind of Hollywood who has wasted away. This is through his very specific sort of exasperation that Dreyfuss realizes in his work that manages to wield that energetic style of his in a rather unique fashion. There is this inherent intensity that Dreyfuss finds in the souse director that are this embers of the brilliant talent. A certain unpleasant frigidity quality he brings even in that exhaustion. There is a burden in this that Dreyfuss is able to play into the part that makes the man seem especially uncomfortable in his state. Dreyfuss doesn't make it wholly natural, but instead rather directly atypical. He is not a man who has settled into his state of life. He is writhing within it that allows Dreyfuss to deliver this viciousness of a personality deep within his eyes that are never only glazed rather still piercing in their own way. He creates the sense of the man who is almost in this state of a madness created by his descent towards nothingness. 

There is more to the boy wonder than a husk, though not too much, which we see particularly through the other supporting characters of the film. Now on one end we have his relationships with the other men including his male "star" Rex (Stephen Davies) or his producer Big Mac (Bob Hoskins). In his relationships with the men there is a more overt derision that Dreyfuss portrays in every venomous delivery towards them. In these moments he accentuates a most powerful callousness that shows so well the boy's disregard for fellow "users" of the same industry where he's now applying his trade. Dreyfuss differs this subtly within his two "starlets" one former in the heroin addict Harlene (Veronica Cartwright) and later the potential newcomer Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper). With the former Dreyfuss and Cartwright are simply excellent together. In just a few minutes we quickly see their rotting relationship through their performances. There is a certain tenderness even sweetness the two brings in their interaction, even as one drinks towards death, and the other shoots up her arm towards the same fate. They create a warmth though even in this that suggests an older friendship even within this certain grotesque state of their current mutual rot as people.

Dreyfuss has one great moment early on with Cartwright where the boy wonder warns her about the drugs she's taking. Dreyfuss's tired delivery on the surface still shows the man beaten down by life, but deep within it is still an earnestness that reflects an honest concern still somewhere in the man. When she rather suddenly exits the picture Dreyfuss is again remarkable in creating the state of the man. Dreyfuss finds a callousness in his delivery as the boy wonder makes an obscene suggestion in regards to the news, yet again he underlays it with a quiet yet still palatable sadness deep within that reveals itself as this piercing anguish internalized in Dreyfuss's beaten down face. Now this a little bit different from his relationship with Cathy who is initially introduced to him as the girlfriend of Mac, and seems to have a strange interest in the concept of inserts. Dreyfuss initially brings the same disdain towards her initially until she begins to challenge him beyond what he expects. When her interest in him grows, and she begins to encourage his inspiration, in more ways than one, Dreyfuss slowly moves to this genuine interest along with almost a hint of hope at times. Of course this is a little separate, though effectively so, from when we see the boy wonder direct his "films". Dreyfuss is brilliant in these scenes where he does show a spark in the man, though specifically related to the act of directing. This is as he essentially embodies that ambition of a great director as Dreyfuss switches it on suggesting the man the boy once was. This too is unpleasant in its own, mostly due to the end result, though he is amazing as he one moment becomes the tender lover and another the vile sadist. In each though Dreyfuss is absolutely convincing in the success of the man, and in revealing the man in his purest state as a director. Dreyfuss though depicts these as only minor relapses though never wholly bringing the man out of his decay, powerfully showing the man is perhaps beyond recovery. Dreyfuss's work is consistently captivating as he makes use of his best qualities as a performer to craft quite the unique character as this man both bursting at the seams and dying inside.