Alternate Best Actor 2016: Don Cheadle in Miles Ahead

Don Cheadle did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Miles Davis in Miles Ahead. 

Miles Ahead juxtaposes two times in the famed Jazz musician's life, that of a strange singular story later in his life and a more expected tale of his difficult relationship with a dancer. 

Don Cheadle writes, directs, and acts in the film, trying to make his mark on the legacy of Miles Davis in multiple ways. A tough act to follow in more ways than one, and Cheadle tries to leave a mark for better and worse. As a director/writer, he tries to craft something off-beat, maybe even Jazz in the switches of narrative in the timelines and the choice to give episodes of Davis rather than a greater portrait. Although it is always easy to appreciate a daring approach to the often-tired musical biopic, the execution of the daring still matters and this is where Miles Ahead falls short, though it doesn't die. It is aided by Cheadle the actor who is daring himself because he must play Davis at all, who due to surgery complications had an extremely distinct raspy permanently injured voice. This is kind of an essential choice, he had to do the voice really because it is such a part of who Davis is, but it is also so aggressively distinct it is going to stick out. And to say it isn't a little disconcerting at first would be an understatement, particularly against Cheadle's typically more higher-pitched voice. Cheadle goes for it, and to his credit, it is a consistent element of his performance, even if that still raises the question does it work?

Well, it does take a while to get used to, and I'd say even longer for the younger Miles. The older is helped by Cheadle getting more elements to transform by having Davis's long hair and donning sunglasses at almost all times. The younger Miles though is just Don Cheadle as we know him and it does take more to get used to his voice, but eventually, I will say I got used to it on both sides, again it helps that Cheadle sticks to it as automatically not natural as it sounds. Cheadle makes you eventually accept it and it does help you accept him as Davis, after a fashion. The story itself is scattershot and it probably is best to look at the two tales separately because we get very different men and therefore performances from Cheadle. The younger performance is more akin to the expected biopic just in a microcosm. We get the moments as the earlier successful and more charming musician at the time. Cheadle conveys just in and around the music scene a greater exuberance in his manner. We see the youth of the man and not because he looks younger, his whole vibe conveys this idea, even with his still very raspy voice regardless. 

The younger Davis scenes are this progression of the man moving towards the man we see in the future in his relationship with his girlfriend dancer Frances Taylor. We see him charm her initially and there Cheadle has this greater ease in his manner. There is confidence in his posture and his expression of a man whose looking for love rather than feeling any kind of hurt. In the initial scenes between Davis and Taylor, Cheadle shows the sense of ease in the relationship and the comfort that we get initially. This degrades quickly though as her own success as a dancer keeps him from her and in many ways is not always there for his emotional needs. Although the nature of the film keeps it from being a more intimate progression, Cheadle is good in each stage we see of the toxicity in Davis that quickly reveals itself. Cheadle though begins by straining the need for the comfort she gives him initially and speaks each word with personal regret. This is lost quicker than it is found as Cheadle shows the end of this period as he becomes a man defined by his emotional anxieties and is effective in presenting it essentially as a lack of rational control as he spirals towards even violence in the relationship. 

The main focus of the film is the older Miles, even though it is the weirder story that is much about a strange search for stolen property, mixed around with a strange insecure journalist (Ewan McGregor) and dealing with shady record producer types. I can't say it all adds up to something that exactly works, though kudos for trying to do something unique. Cheadle though is terrific as this side of Davis because in contrast to the youth he just exudes age. His expression more constricted into a state of almost constant weariness and just exasperation. The delivery of his already raspy voice was even sharper and more aggressive. Cheadle represents a man even more worn away by life and almost seems like a nub in some ways. Cheadle's performance is in this kind of drift as he doesn't exactly interact with the people around them except with a certain hostile intensity. A random hostile intensity that is a mixture of pointed toward those who helped to create his current state, and just a generalized exasperation to the world. Cheadle makes moments of randomly threatening a DJ or telling an interviewer that he's not Walter Cronkite have the same puncturing quality of a man who is filled with a different kind of ease, the ease of disregarding everything and almost everyone around him. 

While Cheadle is entertaining in being the misanthropic Davis in the late-period scenes, it would be repetitive if there wasn't more and there is more that we see when he discusses his love of music, or even how he messes around with the piano. Cheadle is great in these moments because he shows a real passion that comes out deep within the haggard frame of the man. His eyes warm up just a bit and his voice, even as raspy as it is, speaks less of hardness towards the world. There is a sense of beauty in it and there becomes a more lyrical quality in Cheadle's delivery that denotes the man truly expressing his life's passion. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded more of these moments because they are those that most come to life in the film. Unfortunately, so much of this section gets caught up in the rigamarole of the plot, which if it was truly compelling would be fine, however that just isn't the case. Although that does limit the eventual portrait of Davis, this is more than an interesting stab at the man if we are talking specifically about Cheadle's own performance. Although his writing and directing don't quite live up to the man, his performance does deliver on the idea, even if it becomes limited to an extent because of his writing and directing falling a bit short.