Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1998: Thomas Bo Larsen in Festen

Thomas Bo Larsen did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Michael in Festen.

Festen depicts a family gathering for the family patriarch's sixtieth birthday...naturally things don't go according to plan. 

Frequent Thomas Vinterberg collaborator Thomas Bo Larsen plays Michael the son of the birthday man, and the brother of Christian (Ulrich Thomsen) who has a vendetta to expose his father as a pedophile sexual abuser of his family, after his and Michael's sister commits suicide. Where Christian is weighed down by that abuse, Michael is a very different man. In fact Bo Larsen's performance is one of a kind of id as we see him even coming to their gathering place without any sort of good grace and manners. Bo Larsen throws himself into the scene in a way where there is no sense of any kind of balance of the man. Bo Larsen's performance is that of this ball of energy that isn't exactly the most pleasant however, as it goes in about any direction with a sudden specified outburst, in moments of very unexpected cruelty whether that be a moment of seemingly more silly flamboyance before a celebration, or more disturbing moments of sexual cruelty, misdeeds or overt racism towards his sister's African American boyfriend. Bo Larsen presents it as all in this way a disturbing ease in the way he unleashes himself so naturally, that it seems as authentic as any moment of calm, and painfully presents Michael as just the way that he is.

The revelation that perhaps explains parts of Michael is in Christian who reveals his father's abhorrent treatments of his own children in a toast, that despite the revelation the party proceeds as though nothing has happened. None the less it seems to grant understanding to the behavior of each of the children even if it is never stated as such. As we see this most evidently so when their father speaks to Michael with very specific instructions for the ceremony, and the potential reward. The usually so brazen Michael is very much a different man, Bo Larsen becomes retiring a moment, fearful as quickly and just listening as a little boy would if he was on the edge between punishment and reward from a parent. Bo Larsen in just a brief mostly reactionary scene reveals so much of what defines Michael as a man broken by his father as Christian is, but how his own trauma reveals itself couldn't be more different perhaps in the specific nature of that trauma. As we see rather a man suffering in his trauma as is the case for Christian, Bo Larsen portrays the man in a way almost recreating the manner in some degree, as though the implication perhaps is that Michael may not have been sexually abused in the same way he was regardless still cruelly treated in some way. In turn Bo Larsen presents a man who covers up his own experience in part by hedonistic pleasures or becoming cruel in his own ways. It is all just the natural thrust within Bo Larsen's performance that creates this intensity within Michael as a man who clearly acts first and thinks later as related to both his urges and any reaction to any emotion. When their father attempts to deny any wrongdoing, Michael reacts by becoming his personal hatchet man by both physically beating Christian and leading a racist chant against his sister's boyfriend after the latter presents sympathy for Christian. Bo Larsen is impeccably vile in these scenes, with a key animalistic approach to every one of these moments in emphasizing Michael as a man doing it with very little thought, and just the most immediate action as to please his father. Change only comes when their living sister reads the suicide note of their deceased sister that supports all of Christian's claims, and Bo Larsen does much with his genuine reactions of a man who finally has to think for once, being less of a surprise and more of a forceful acceptance to something he likely already knew deep down within himself. Leading however to less thinking as he goes about brutally attacking his father instead as the same id action, though the difference being there can be any good of it. Bo Larsen earns the final scene of his character finally being supportive of his brother, because he doesn't make it this grand shift, rather a gentle one of a man no longer being caught within the viral poison of his father. Bo Larsen's performance most needs to ride the line of the blunt reality the film is crafting due to the overt nature of Michael, yet as extreme as his character is, he feels as authentic as any other element because of the honesty of Bo Larsen's performance which simply IS, Michael and realizes an authentic extreme.