Alternate Best Actor 1980: Richard Dreyfuss in The Competition...A Best Actor Mystery

It's a cold, dark night. I bite down on my last candy cigarette knowing there won't be another for some time. I look through my draw, only gummy cigars, I leave them for the psychopaths and murderers. Next to them is the case file that's been the source of a persistent migraine for the last few years. Passed along to be by one Daniel Thornton, a mystery solve I was told. I peel over its dust covered pages. Find a familiar face staring back at me. Richard Dreyfuss...I should've known, especially since it the title of this deposition, but I've seen this man for some time. That high pitched voice, the short stature, and curly hair. I know this man, so what about him this time. I had to dive deeper, even as this nagging pinch on the back of my skull told me there would be no good to come of it, but I had to, I couldn't leave it be. 

First stop was Dirty's John's bar, the floor filthy, the patrons filthier, John himself remarkably well dressed and aromatic. Now most people without a head injury call this place Wikipedia, but I know better. Either way, the only source I got. Billy Q, the oldest of all the patrons and the strangest of names informs me of the strangest thing about this mystery, the plaudits and the condemnation. What was this film, Q told me, nominated for best editing and best song, but Dreyfuss himself nominated for Razzie for worst actor. The best song I could understand, you can depend the quality of a film being nominated for best song about as much as you can leaving Armie Hammer with a pint of human blood. The editing though is usually reserved for films of some note, some kind of note, this film's got a lot of notes I'm told though. The Competition I learned, it's about a piano competition, the plot thickens, almost as much as the drink I ordered.

I try to pass on the drink, and take my exit, but a pair fellows push me in the back alley. One a dead ringer for Mike Mazurki, the other for Jack O'Halloran, I let them know the similarities, they don't seem to get the reference, or perhaps they do. The two tell me to keep out of it, and throw me in a garbage can, jokes on them, if they had read my review of Tommy Wiseau in the Room, they'd know I love garbage. When I get threatened about a review it means one of two things, a fan boy, or I'm onto a dark secret. Those guys didn't look like Zach Snyder fans so it must be latter. I decide to screw the middle man and go right to the source...my local library. They must have the Competition I thought, but no, all the windows were dark. Not a single source of light...strange it was only 2 am. I go undeterred, find the back door logged open with a copy of Confessions of an Actor by Laurence Olivier, I knew someone was messing with me. 

Inside I find the box for The Competition, but no VHS, just a slip of paper that says "better luck next time ha ha ha". Luckily I think looked up on justwatch.com and found it streaming on Amazon, whoever was keeping me from the film obviously hadn't entered into the 21st century. I couldn't think about that though, I had a bigger fish to fry, well actually some tacos to make, as I prep my viewing of the Competition. As soon as the film started I could see why someone wanted to keep from the horrible truth of the film it's it's...kind of middling I guess, not bad, not particularly good. Anyway I think the editing nod must have come from the film's different little vignettes about the different players prepping for a piano competition, Richard Dreyfuss as former wunderkind Paul Dietrich is merely one of them. He is the lead guy, but the film spends a little time with every one of his rivals for his piano playing crown. Not that there is anything inspired in the montages or the sequencing to indicate the need for a best editing nomination. How it was nominated over something like The Empire Strikes Back, is a bit of a head-scratcher. 

 

So what makes Dreyfuss Razzie worthy though...nothing, it's no greater mystery than Stanley Kubrick being nominated for The Shining or Ennio Morricone being nominated for The Thing, the Razzies are dumb. Then who were those men trying to stop me...probably just figments of my imagination in some attempt to stretch out this review for a performance I don't have much to say about. You might think this is a cop out, but sometimes some mysterious are better unanswered, at least that's what I'm told by every bad ambiguous ending ever made. Okay, the guys were from Razzies...sure why not. They wanted to cover up their terrible choices, I had a spectacular gun battle with them, and there was a giant explosion.Whatever, anyway this as this is a pretty typical neurotic Dreyfuss turn. The worst part about it being his chemistry with Amy Irving as a fellow pianist, this is far more so on Irving, who ever the bland actress, makes it difficult for Dreyfuss to find any real spark with her. Dreyfuss is a bit lower key than usual for this period, brings a slight somberness appropriate to a guy who even at a young age is unfulfilled potential. He's entirely more than fine though in portraying the sort of shaken determination of this guy just trying to be a musical genius and failing to be in some ways. His actual musical portrayals are well handled in presenting that kind of reserved intensity for a concert pianist. This while having that romance that amounts to little, but Dreyfuss does his best to make something out of it. Irving is just far too stilted, making their scenes much the same. Really that is the main weakness of this work, which is kind of a less neurotic version of his performance in The Goodbye Girl (A performance I like more and more as time goes by). Dreyfuss though certainly tries and his off-beat energy is somewhat appreciated in the proceedings of this film. He can be earnest and again the spark just isn't with Irving, but you can feel Dreyfuss trying to make it happen. That is really what holds this performance back from a certain point, though far from being deserving of any "worst of" list. Overall you get a little Dreyfuss charm, a little neurosis, a combination here that isn't one of his notable performances, nor one of his bad performances, it's one of his performances no more, no less.