Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2000: Paddy Considine in A Room For Romeo Brass

Paddy Considine did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Morell in A Room For Romeo Brass. 

A Room For Romeo Brass is an effective off-beat coming of age story.

This film marks the film debut of Paddy Considine, an actor who is fascinating in that he both seemingly can fit into a many different sorts of roles with ease, yet also is extremely idiosyncratic in his presence. This debut pretty much speaks to this truth and honestly this is a stunning debut. The idea of his presence is part of the greatness of this performance as Considine easily makes you believe one thing when his character first appears. This as the film follows largely two teenage friends "Knocks" and the titular Romeo as they go about their lives, Considine's Morell first appearing as he helps the two boys by chasing off two of their bullies before giving the boys a ride home. Everything about this creation that is Morell is already just amazing work by Considine. This in his unique manner that speaks towards some sort of lack of mental normalcy. These mannerisms are truly just consistent and part of his performance. This in his way of speaking that is almost as he's making these little specifying moments, and speaking in a way as a man who needs to focus quiet a bit into a singular thought before speaking towards others. This though with his physical manner though that is entirely his own and as successful in creating Morell. This difficult posture of his performance where the man stands with a discomfort and awkwardness. A tightness in Considine's performance that shows this sloppy way of a man who is never sure how to stand, and also cannot be sure where to look. 

Considine's mannerisms here are brilliant and his performance though goes much further than in crafting that initial perspective of Morell, who despite helping in a violent situation, at first successfully seems like this older, imperfect, mentor type for the boys. This as Considine is quite endearing in expressing his friendship to the boys, and even more so in his random way of suddenly speaking his affection for one of their sister's. Considine's quite amazing in that he finds this perfect balance between being completely awkward in his manner but also being kind of strangely charming in how pure this awkwardness seems at first. When he initial tries to flirt with said sister by basically saying if it would be okay to instantly ask someone to be with them. Considine's delivery is perfection as he is so sincere in the statement while also creating the complete sense of the obliviousness of the awkward potential creepiness of it. This is followed by the boys "helping" Morell by dressing him up in a ridiculous costume to ask out the sister to which almost immediately causes Morell to get laughed out. Considine is great in again as he approaches this scene with such a lack of understanding of the moment initially, and speaks so generously his lines of attempted flirtation. His moment of realization then is genuinely heartbreaking because there is this innocence about the situation in Considine's reactions. He shows a man who really had no idea what he was doing and in turn shows the cruelty there is in bringing such a man, with such a lack of self-awareness, to a situation of overt mockery. 

We seem to get over this and again Considine creates some truly excellent scenes that are hard to watch, but in the right way. This as he makes Morell so believably consistent whether that seem some of the possibly warmer moments of speaking to the boys with his attempts at friendship, or his more overtly awkward moments to continuing to romance the sister in his own way. Considine's delivery is always in that way of these specific statements where in each he shows the man speaking with his unique way of realizing the words as they come out of him. This also while also showing the sort of difficult understanding of comprehending those around him. Considine is great in showing the attempt but also the failure in this creating this curious and fascinating combination between bluntness and real a timidness. This creating a powerful sense of a man who can't naturally interact but also really wants to. The mental lack of wellness of Morell though begins to realize itself more darkly particularly a moment where Morell inquires why Knocks had played the previous prank upon him. Considine begins the conversation with this that same blunt awkwardness in his delivery however at first this just seems inquisitive. The sense of hurt is under surface but mostly the man seems to be prodding for understanding. When Knocks can't come up with something Morell would accept he brings a knife and overtly threatens the boy. Considine is downright terrifying because how equally honest he is in this moment in showing the same time of lack of understanding. This though fashioned through a threat that Considine delivers with such shocking intensity. 

Considine's work then becomes not even a ticking time bomb, but rather just explosive that are always primed, being able to be set off maybe by anything. This as Considine shows that Morell can swing back towards a more genial manner, however all of it he delivers in this same way of showing the man who is always drifting between different edges of his personality and mental difficulty with handling the reality in front him. This as moments of delivering military like monologues to the titular Romeo, or completely failing with the sister, after seemingly making some progress, Considine emphasizing this all in the state of man who has no idea of how to interact with the world. When this failure to interact though comes to ahead it is with violence that he responds. Considine makes this so natural feeling in the moments of swinging towards this violence. There is such a visceral power in Considine's work as he shows it to be this sort of instinctual defense of Morell's towards handling anything that doesn't make sense or work for him. Considine's work effectively becomes quite disturbing by expressing this kind of a man who can seem harmless in one moment then nearly a killer in the next. Considine portraying all the behavior, whether it is awkwardly attempting to seduce the sister, or attempting to murder a man with hammer, Considine shows it to be on the same broken wavelength that is Morell's mind. Considine making sense of this mess of a man, which does more than creating just a striking character in this film. It creates this particularly potent realization of this one of a kind type of character who feels so tangible. Crafting this broken personality that manages to be both heartbreaking and terrifying, and this simply is an incredible debut turn.