Alternate Best Actor 1977: Fernando Rey in Elisa, Vida Mía

Fernando Rey did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite winning Cannes, for portraying Luis in Elisa, Vida Mía.

Elisa, Vida Mía explores a woman Elisa (Geraldine Chaplin), examining her life while staying with her father on a secluded farmhouse.

Fernando Rey also received some critical mentions for his work in Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, in a dubbed performance as a rich older man lusting after an enigmatic if not impish younger woman. Where, though dubbed, Rey's physical work certainly was effective there in terms of portraying the growing frustrations in the man, mixed in with the immediate sexual fascinations that keep him going back. Rey, in his own voice, also is featured here in a film that is in part about the relationship between an older man and younger woman, though this time father and daughter, though in both instances his co-stars get the showier roles. Rey's role here is very subdued here, and only sometimes the focus as we find him just being the genial father figure who his extended family has come to visit. He brings a quiet warmth about him in just his modest interactions but doesn't put much on it other than just a man happy to see his family. So much that he's more than eager to invite his daughter to stay with him so they can connect more. And if that seems the setup for a two hander where the two reconnect after so many years, you'd be incorrect because the focal point is much more Chaplin as Elisa than it is Rey as Luis. 

Rey comes in and out of the film, much as the film itself comes and in and out of its perspectives that at times seems straightforward enough about Elisa just thinking about her life, however there are common swerves both into flashbacks and into fantasies involving the people she knows. Rey is interspersed into various moments, such as telling Elisa about a man he thinks might be a murderer visiting a grave, that he does little about, or telling her about his writing that he doesn't like to be pretensions about. Which Rey's own performance is pretty gentle, and his delivery is just of this sharing calm of a man just wanting to share a bit with his daughter without much more than that. At times she shares with him, her thoughts, her struggles, and with any Rey brings an earnest empathy in any given scene. One that creates the right sense of the father, but also the father who has not always been there recently so he's catching up as a well as being there now. We get a few other bits, such as Luis bringing Elisa to his school, which we get the same general consistent demeanor as he "shows off" his daughter with a natural affability. Rey is wholly consistent, however I wouldn't say he's not exactly overshadowed by Chaplin, because he is. And mostly he's a welcome enough presence but not much more than that. We occasional get an alternative moment, such as when his health begins to fail, which Rey carries the right sort of physical hesitations and exhaustion however it's not a focal point. We even get a completely random incest scene, well Chaplin also plays her own mother, so maybe it's not supposed to be that, either way. Rey delivers a fine performance here, you certainly sense the history between the two, the limited growth, the understanding, the care, but also the separation. It is largely of reactions, however Rey effectively brings this internal within his own work, even if this is very much Chaplin's film.