Best Actor 2024: Adrien Brody in The Brutalist

Adrien Brody received his second Oscar nomination for portraying László Tóth in The Brutalist.

The Brutalist follows a Hungarian architect as attempts to make it in America after having survived the Holocaust. 

After Adrien Brody’s surprise though worthy Oscar win at the young age of 29 for The Pianist, his career never quite seemed to match that break out, though to be fair to Brody there were good films and performances within the period regardless and even before this film he certainly found some prominence again via Wes Andersons’s House For Actors Who Are Talented But Maybe Didn’t Make The Best Career Choices alongside fellow 2024 nominee Edward Norton. But regardless this film feels special within the trajectory of Brody’s career particularly as one could argue that this film in some way picks up where The Pianist leaves off, though I will say while the characters share some traits in common László Tóth is not just a continuation of Władysław Szpilman in terms of Brody’s own performance. Brody simply is Tóth in a way few performances are, and it is one of those surprises that he wasn’t intended for the role originally since he simply is this person from the first bits of acting within the film. As we open his story as he is shuffling off the dark innards of a boat as he enters Ellis Island. Brody’s delivery of just his first lines establishes already an aspect of the accent that is an example of a truly great accent where it should be mentioned because not only is it natural, it grants an immediate sense of period, time and place the moment we hear his voice. It doesn’t feel like a point to show off, it just feels like the character, and the accent never overwhelms the performance; it is just a natural part of the character. And it is felt from his first words as making sure he is stolen from, we hear the man from Eastern Europe but more so the hesitating fear in his voice as he tries to secure himself. The voice of a man who has been through much, and it is no way out of hell even after he escapes the seeming hell of the bowels of this ship. 

Escaping the hell though is part of what I adore about this performance and this film, as we find Tóth leaving the ship with his friend he clearly found on his way crossing the Atlantic. We have the moment where they both see the Statue of Liberty, though skewed which is one of my favorite shots of last year, where Brody’s jubilation isn’t some surface emotion, there is such a deep cry of joy as in his eyes this is clearly a man who has been in a desperate state just a the past few days, but even more so beyond that. His reaction is of a man who believes he is seeing the promise of the American dream in this brief celebration of the men, as we see someone seeing some potential of escaping his horrific past. Unfortunately his friend only takes László to a brothel off the ship, where Brody continues to convey the history of the man as László fails to perform, and Brody brings such a remarkable awkwardness throughout the interaction. There is an attempt at a kind of tenderness that reflects a man who hasn’t been touched in any tender way even via payed overt sexuality, but still the sense of a pressured shame of his inability to perform but I’d say even more so the weighing since of his wife who he believes to be deceased at this point. Brody brings out within the “failure” of László  in the moment to hold such a clear attachment to still being stuck in that old existence. Before leaving New York to see his cousin on the outskirts of Pennsylvania, even Brody’s performance of the goodbye from his friend within the ship, is such tremendous work in terms of how much weight we bring as Brody suggests the potency of connection for László fitting a man who likely had few friends, or least not many alive friends, in the last few years of his existence. It is only the scenes before even the title card, and Brody is letting into a great novel’s details in this man’s life mostly just through his performance at this point. 

László arrives at his destination greeted by his Americanized cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) where Brody brings so much weight to the moment in bringing an immediate sense of the history between the two but more so Brody’s expression denotes the discovery a familiar smiling face after years of not seeing any. His performance as much as it shows the joy initially is filled with that pain before this moment. When Attila tells László that Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) is alive, Brody’s work is simply extraordinary in the soulfulness and the gamut of emotions he so naturally purges out in this single breakdown in the moment. As you see the immediate surprise, segueing into excitement then sudden sorrow and even shame as he begins to collapse, showing in these changes completely naturally portrayed by Brody as an unleashing of this emotion which also speaks to the history. The surprise of a man who truly thought his wife was dead, that sense of the separation of time from the last time he saw her, the joy of the old relationship and love within that excitement, the sorrow of the idea of the loss, but also that shame that perhaps alludes to his time at the brothel revealing almost the man punishing himself for having given into the despair that she was dead. We finally perhaps have some hope for the future as Attilia shows László around his furniture showroom along with Attila’s very American wife Audrey (Emma Laird). Brody’s great in setting up this initial state of László in this new land though as there is humble core to the demeanor as he moves around in this perpetual state of gratitude, as Attillia gives him a place to work and even a place to stay, albeit a bathroom less showroom closet essentially. Brody’s sincerity though takes this in even as an opportunity for anything and the quietude of the man is someone who will not speak out at this moment just accepting what it is that he can be given at this time. 

We see initially a progression within Brody’s performance in portraying László trying to find his strength as a man again. We have the moment where he assures another immigrant Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé) and his son that he will make sure to find them food after a charity runs out of supplies. Brody’s quiet warmth in the moment is notable as just there’s a little bit of a confidence within it, not much yet but enough as we see the man establish the friendship with Gordon, though there will be negative aspects of that friendship soon enough. Within the world we see László develop his own minimalistic chair for his cousin, and in that process there’s a quiet precision within Brody’s performance where we see man developing purpose again. He’s no longer the fearful man in a new country but slowly finding something for himself again. Brody still keeps a certain protection within his work, partially opening up but not fully. And frequently there’s so much that Brody does internally in a given scene such as when he, Attila and Audrey are celebrating and Attila tries to get László to dance with Audrey. Brody’s expression brings so much reservation with the internalized knowledge that this could lead to bigger problems, before the urging finally convinces him to do so, and Brody is great in the slight hesitation however moment of familial joy that takes over as they dance. Something that is nearly crushed as she makes dismissive remarks to a drunken László afterwards where Brody’s reaction has a remarkable sense of defeat and pathos. Lost in the moment of knowing what really to say, and Brody’s eyes rather reflect a man not wanting to give himself to more pain by getting into this conflict with her. 

Eventually Attila receives a commission from the wealthy Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) who wants Attila to refurbish Harry’s father Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce)’s library, which Attila wants László to oversee. And here is where Brody absolutely excels in making us see glimpses of perhaps László before he suffered through the holocaust, right from when they are setting up estimates for the job and Brody looks around where you see the man actively trying to realize something special in his mind. When Attila is more compromising in his way about Harry, Brody’s terrific delivery of the doubled estimate is spoken with such confidence of a man who believes he can make a masterpiece out of the library. Within the sequence of the building of the library to László’s minimalistic specifications, Brody is the man now in control of the situation, where the way even how he sweeps dust with the attention to detail, and his specifications for the very exact way he wants the room constructed is with the charisma of a true genius. When something even goes wrong with the job where the removal of the glass roof that breaks, Brody’s quiet indignation over the mistake is with the man who is truly the mastermind behind the project who knows how it should all be done, and within this we see the once master architect nearly back to life. Even with Harrison unexpectedly returning home furious at the mess created by the job, there is a power in the calm that Brody brings in his replies to the anger, just by urging the man to see what the job is meant to be and then his delivery of just leaving and accepting of the man’s dismissiveness, actually isn’t a moment of weakness, rather we see still confidence in Brody of a man who knows that his work was great so doesn't need to argue for it at this point. This contrasts heavily however when Attilla soon afterwards states that the Van Buren’s are refusing any payment and worse than that is kicking him out for a false claim by Audrey that László made a pass at her. László is the opposite here in just accepting the charge and his fate of exile from his cousin’s home. Why this makes sense is Brody’s performance where in his reaction we see the far greater weight to the accusation from a family member, than just an angry customer, showing instead a heartbreaking sense of defeat in his reaction with the sense of any dream he had for America crumbling in his eyes as Atilla tosses him away like trash. 

We cut ahead in time as we find László with Gordon living in Catholic charities and eking by doing construction work, while the two of them take heroin on their off time, László doing it more so than Gordon. Brody’s portrayal of the heroin addict, which he got his first unfortunate taste of on the ship before the film began when he severely injured his nose, is a man easing away within a depression. Brody doesn’t portray it as the action that finds jubilation, rather as something that makes him able to exist in his sorrow at first, and becomes just the point of habit afterwhile. Brody’s manner in these scenes are of a man going through the motions in almost a zombified state. Brody brings just the barest energy of the man existing far more than living as we see him shoot up, work construction and dig ditches, until by chance Harrison returns looking for László. Harrison from the reaction to László’s library now has become fascinated with the work with the man and learned of his background as a renowned architect in Hungary before the war. I love the entirety of what Brody does in the scene with Pearce as the two talk about László’s past accomplishments. Initially Brody’s spark of life is still limited even as Harrison begins to complement him, I especially adore Brody’s repeated delivery of “doing construction on a Bowling Alley” that he delivers with this specific resignation as an odd acceptance of a seemingly pointless existence he now in given his talents. However when Harrison shows László’s old work we finally break that spell and Brody is again wonderful in showing the history of his connection, his old passions and his old heartbreak as he so tenderly mentions that he thought all of the work had been lost. Brody reveals the old wound and finds life again through this seeming appreciation for that lost work once again. 

Brody once more builds up László a bit to at least to some life again when Harrison invites him over to a dinner at his estate, where Harrison lavishes László with praise for his work in front of all of his guests. Where László’s plight becomes the point of focus and Brody’s amazing throughout the scene as you see such careful anxiety within the scene with just a bit of suspicion to the whole affair but an attempt at appreciation. His exasperation when noting with such sadness that it seems unlikely to himself that he will be able to find a way to get his wife and his niece over the America, we see the old despair for a moment, until Harrison’s Jewish attorney shows both the recognition for their mutual faith and informs László of a law that will help László reunite with his family. Brody’s manner changes instantly to bring sudden hope in his eyes again and seemingly just genuine appreciation to what seems possible in his life, with the most sincere delivery of his pat on the arm as a thank you to Harrison for seemingly setting all this up for him. Followed by a pivotal scene where Harrison tells his tale of dismissing his own grandparents who begged him for money before wanting to learn more about László’s method behind his minimalism. Brody is fantastic in naturally rearranging László again into what was likely his former self, more so than ever as he suggests a man believing that Harrison is speaking to him as an equal and brings those walls down to allow himself to be his old self for just a moment. And I’ll say Brody touches even just a bit of the pompousness of a genius as he describes his method as something that lasts against all other things, and while there is absolute passion in every one of the words the way Brody positions it as a doctrine. Brody now in this moment becomes the intellectual architect professor, no longer the fearful immigrant or survivor. 

Something that ends up working out as Harrison not only brought László to praise him but to also show him the setting for a community center that he wants László to build in memorial for Harrison’s late mother. Brody’s gradual progression through the scenes up to the intermission are masterful in Brody’s progression in confidence. Finding initially the right cautiousness in his requests to Harrison’s dream. Creating texture within every conversation that grants us a sense of the complication now as Brody shows László in working mode. When he first hears the idea from Harrison who mentions “losing a dream”, there’s such sincerity at first to sharing that idea and the nuance in the quiet reaction is perfection from Brody. But as is the conservations following where the job seems quite enormous in nature and Brody brings a convincing degree of mentally taking it in as a man trying to place all of the ideas Harrison is throwing at him in a single usable way. When he is forced to work with a practically minded builder Leslie Woodrow (Jonthan Hyde), Brody brings a down to earth quality as though László has been in these rooms before, albeit a long time ago, with his exciting push for his ideas over those of compromise and there is such a way that Brody accentuates the moments of specific ideas where there is just this specified intensity of a man where his passion is exact. Brody is amazing in the town hall scene where he presents his ideas to the committee, and you see László at his apex. Brody isn’t braggadocious, rather he brings that specific power to László in this scene. He brings such nuance when talking about the perception of his background where you see in his eyes going through an internalized minor exasperation beyond the prejudice, but has a force to go beyond as he presents the key to his building as a beacon literally for the community, where Brody has this easy command of someone presenting his genius where he knows his ideas are a kind of truth. A truth that in this moment he is able to convey to all others with such conviction. 

After intermission we come back some years later where we get some extreme contrasts which again Brody is an essential facet in terms of making the contrasts illuminations of the situation rather than unnatural disparate ones. The opening is when he is finally reunited with Erzsébet which is heartbreaking work from Brody again because there is only the sincerest hopeful joy until he actually sees she is in a wheelchair stricken with osteoporosis due to famine, where Brody’s expression shifts to concern than sorrow so naturally once again in conveying the years of painful separation. Still even then the way he embraces her is filled with love regardless. This is heavily contrasted though in their first night together where Brody and Jones go from the outward loving chemistry to the extreme intimacy of the two as a long married couple. They are exceptional together because even the way they bicker quickly about other matters, each's delivery to others has the old shorthand of that married couple that is fascinating as you instantly are granted the sense of history beyond the separation. Something that goes further as Erzsébet seeks László’s physical affection. An element that is performed with a particularly potent realism in the way there is something different, even more specific in that sexual intimacy yet wholly the same people however revealing that much more detail of their connection. Something though that comes out part in the lust and love we see naturally intertwined however complicated as their mutual traumas reveal themselves as authentically as the lust, as Brody brings such a sense shame and sorrow of the years apart, his failures but also pivotally the still very real love he had almost forced down within his pain. 

Contrasting that is his ongoing relationship with the project where essentially László becomes a director much of the time trying to get final cut with his project, meanwhile his “producer” in Harrison is becoming more demeaning at times and starting to purposefully undercut him. Brody’s excellent in playing the note of no longer any notion of equals when speaking with Harrison and instead his face bears years of minor abuses as he interacts with him and just keeps it down into his throat best he can. Any notion that László is his equal is obviously lost. In the project itself Brody weaponizes the frustrations of the artist into every moment of dealing with the penny pinchers that Harrison purposefully brought on, and secretly and not so secretly supported by Harrison to keep going against László’s wishes. Brody excels in taking it all in with this combination of still granting the vicious sense of purpose, of the dream, of the ambition of the wish in his eyes, but now sharpened actually by his constantly needing to fight for every aspect of his specific designs. We see the moments of holding in from the year before, no longer can be done and he comes lashing out at the people he is able to, and within that Brody offers such real conviction for that vision. Making so when a disaster hits causing Harrison to shutter the project, Brody is marvelous in the combination between defeated heartbreak as he tries to brokenly argue to keep going, only to be shouted down by Harrison, then unleashing his wrath against his own work with the anger of a man who is almost screaming at the very idea of a dream by seeing it go up in smoke, which too results in him being reprimanded but this time by his wife. And I love all these moments of Brody and Jones, as much as they’ve been through they are truly an old married couple in the way Jones cuts through while Brody quietly resigns, though doesn’t wholly give in to her wisdom each time. 

Unfortunately Harrison decides to continue the project which leads László to go with him to pick up a piece of marble to help complete the project, which during this time during a heroin induced stupor László is raped by Harrison. After this point what Brody portrays is László fundamentally twisted with  all the frustrations and disappointments of his life coming to the surface without exception which he held back before. Brody’s ferocity in the anger of these scenes is no longer a man with passion for his project fighting for it, it is now a temper without a fuse, as Brody makes every lash out such an instinctual response of someone rotting to the core of his mind. Brody expresses the fundamental horror of living with what happened to him, but as a catalyst to unleashing his anger over it all from his first days of disappointment with his cousin in America. Brody is outstanding in his long argument with Erzsébet in the car over his anger. Brody is devastating in bringing forth not just of the moment, but of the years of his frustrations all at once. His repeated, defeated, and so pained delivery of “they don’t want us here” rings so powerfully as it isn’t just a personal sense but the very idea of being this unwelcomed outsider left to fend for himself among wolves like Harrison. Unfortunately Erzsébet is similarly pained though physical anguish leading both of them, by László’s sudden choice, to give them both heroin, which they briefly escape together both through drugs and sex, until László discovers Erzsébet nearly dying from an overdose. In a moment of true horror that Brody brings such incredible heart wrenching intensity in his pleas to the hospital to save his wife and the moment where you seem to fully see just what losing her is to him. Leaving the two survivors of so much finally reconnecting, in a scene that seems simple enough yet is pivotal to both performances, and both characters. As finally the embrace doesn’t have a moment's complication, we saw love between them before, but in this moment they are as one in their loving connection each seeing the value of each, with László hardly at peace, but Brody showing someone truly in a state of comfort through this uncompromised love. Brody delivers a masterful turn, he carries the more than three hours of this film, he captures every burden of the character and to me does where it is powerful, convincing and pivotally never feels forced. As much as László goes through, as much pain as he suffers, Brody makes it all real, because that is not all there is to his performance, he finds the nuance within the ambition of the man, the genius of him, the joys he does have, the love he finds and as much as László could’ve been just a suffering symbol, Brody makes him and his journey wholly real. 

Best Actor 2024: Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet received his second Oscar nomination for portraying Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. 

A Complete Unknown is largely your run of the mill musician biopic this time about Bob Dylan. 

Timothée Chalamet has been making a name for himself as both an actor and a movie star. Taking the momentum from his Oscar nominated role in Call Me By Your Name right to several other daring roles or at least collaborations with remarkable filmmakers. Chalamet continued this trend in 2024 with his blockbuster performance in Dune Part II, and his performance in this film, which actually has been doing okay relatively speaking at the boxoffice as well. But the film seems like a required part of a notable actor’s career, and it is something that will come up at some point where they take on the role of a well known figure. Chalamet takes on a particularly well known figure in Bob Dylan, which goes into an even less remarkable trend of the musician biopic, to the point that this is retread from Mangold himself having done an extremely similar film with Walk the Line about Johnny Cash, who is also featured in this film. All that was parodied by Walk Hard successfully, and unfortunately Walk Hard had very little impact apparently when it comes to self-awareness as it failed to make many filmmakers change their ways and make their musician biopics more inventive, as except for some elements of the first act we get yet another run-of-the-mill Dewey Cox tale here. 

I will begin with the positives, Chalamet’s musical performance as Dylan is reasonably convincing, I would say he does go slightly too nasally towards the overt impression closer to John C. Reilly’s Dylan impression to be perfectly honest, but for the most part it is a believable enough approximation of Dylan’s musical performance style. Of course Chalamet doing his own singing and guitar playing is most of it, as Dylan’s stage presence is all about very little in terms of overt showmanship as he’s very minimalist when compared to say a Ray Charles or a Freddie Mercury especially. There’s not too much to imitate in that sense, but Chalamet more or less brings what he needs to in the musical performances. However in his non-singing Dylan voice he actually makes a critical error in doing his singing voice as Dylan’s talking voice, which while not dramatically opposed like Freddie Mercury’s two voices, it is still a more subdued voice with even less of that nasally extreme that is the focus for a Dylan parody. Chalamet makes this error as his speaking voice of Dylan is as much with nasal and does feel like a put on, particularly if you compare what Chalamet is doing here to what Blanchett did as her version of Dylan in the vastly superior I’m Not There, which notable given Blanchett is a woman playing a man yet felt far more natural despite even having room to be overt in her style given the film’s more impressionistic take on Dylan. 

So there’s one thing that I don’t quite believe him as Dylan, as it does feel like an actor with the too nasally voice, and his arching of his back, are all actions to create Dylan but don’t make me believe Dylan. Even within this there’s a strange choice by Chalamet where he always brings this intense glare at times, even in some of the musical performances, which is not really at all the presence you get from Dylan from that period. But the film, and Chalamet fall into what I suspected could be a pitfall of the film and the performer going in, which something I’m Not There brilliantly played with, which is that Dylan is such a mythic figure to so many, a living legend, that the filmmakers might be too timid to treat him as a person. And the film immediately makes this failure, as Dylan is looked at through the broadest of strokes to the point that we even get a character noting that he’s just this mysterious musical man. To be fair you can have a character that lives in ambiguities and the gray areas, but then at least the actor playing the part needs to know the essential truths of the character to give us hints into what might be going on behind that curtain. Unfortunately Chalamet is as lost as anyone else when it comes to who Dylan is as an actual person. He instead squarely performs into playing into the stoic mystery man who starts as the seeming young drifter just there ready to perform masterpieces, with random asides of a seeming sage wisdom at a young age, and there’s little in terms of a real build up towards a man creating an image of himself, or even letting us know just a hint of who this guy really is behind that image. 

The biggest difference between the early scenes of Dylan and the later scenes is less of anything that Chalamet does, and really all of his arc is defined by him now wearing sunglasses most of the time. Chalamet plays into the mysterious man from the opening scenes, and just goes even harder into it. When he reacts or interacts within a scene, we don’t get the sense of internal logic in his performance, something I’ll admit becomes even harder when sunglasses are blocking the window to the soul, but regardless, we get a lot of mumbling from Chalamet and general posturing as his form of Dylan. We don’t cut deeper other than he is this mystical man who will do his own thing no matter what, and the most we get is his quiet frustration. The frustration though even too comes out in just random mumblings of the mystic man still and it doesn’t allude to the real man getting annoyed by being put in a box. When he starts to expand his repertoire, builds his band, using an electric guitar, Chalamet puts no commentary on any of this within his performance, he just does it within the same Dylan “cool” as the rest of his performance. Even the climactic sequence which is causing a near riot for playing with his band at the Folk Festival, where much of the crowd boos him and calls him “Judas”. Chalamet plays all of it like it doesn’t phase him and he is just doing the same Dylan thing as the rest of his performance. It is all just the surface of Dylan and as though none of it impacts him whatsoever, which even in the real footage of Dylan’s reaction to being called Judas, you can see more emotion and more layers than Chalamet’s perfunctory note we get here. 

The aspect that theoretically should be Dylan at his most personal are when he’s with his two love interests the artist Sylvie (Elle Fanning) and fellow folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Notably both Fanning and Barbaro give the most naturalistic performances out of anyone in the film, which is particularly notable for Barbaro given that she too is playing a known figure though her realization of such is convincing without being overt. I mention that because they both seem like real people against Chalamet who even in these scenes still is doing his Dylan impression with too much of it just being that impression. When interacting with them he maybe brings a bit more overt charm, if rather minute, within the mannerisms but it speaks very little to anything going on internally with Dylan. He has a relationship with each woman who questions him about things, and his response is always some mumbling or to play songs. In both reactions Chalamet does little to convey whatever is going on beneath just being the wandering mysterious musician. How’s he really feeling about both women? He likes them I guess. How’s he feeling about basically betraying both of them? Unknown. How’s he feeling about relationships on the whole? Unknown. He just kind of does “I’m Dylan and I’m above it all” and calls it a day. There’s no real hidden vulnerability, there’s nothing nagging at the edges, there’s no transition for the man from his pre-fame phase to his post-fame phase. It’s just the impression of an unknowable image. The ending scene sums it up pretty well for me where we see Dylan visit the dying Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and we don’t see the fan, the grieving loved one, the artist looking for comfort or closure, the mentee looking for a last bit of wisdom, no what we get is just Chalamet looking above it all like Dylan as though he’s a superhero. It honestly wouldn’t have been too out of place if as Dylan was riding away from the folk festival if a kid went up to Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and asked “Why’s he riding away” and Seeger says with his sage wisdom “Because he's the hero folk music deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll criticize him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a mumbling guardian, a watchful poet. He’s a Bob Dylan.” I joke because there’s not a person here that Chalamet plays; it is a vague image of a man that the filmmakers, and Chalamet fail to give earnest life to. He makes no commentary on this icon, offers no insight, just delivers an impression, not the worst ever, but also not a particularly good one. 

Best Actor 2024: Ralph Fiennes in Conclave

Ralph Fiennes received his third Oscar nomination for portraying Cardinal Thomas Lawrence in Conclave. 

Conclave follows the titular event as Catholic cardinals must decide on a new Pope, naturally complications ensue.

The great actor Ralph Fiennes finally receives Oscar recognition again, after a nearly 30 year drought, despite delivering several great performances between his last nomination to now, with I’ll note that his miss for the Grand Budapest Hotel being particularly unpleasant given he was more deserving than 4 of the nominees there and in a top five contender…but I digress. The stars finally aligned again for Fiennes within the intense drama side of his oeuvre, though personally I won’t hesitate to note my preference when he gets to be more playful. Regardless Fiennes’s talent is obvious and such talent is called upon for this film in a very specific targeted performance in playing Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of Cardinals tasked with making sure everything runs smoothly to the election of a new Pope after the death of the much beloved former Pope. What Fiennes brings more than anything here is his considerable gravitas as a performer, which is very much required to attempt to sell this Papal thriller within the film’s overarching largely very serious approach. Fiennes being the great actor he is, certainly is game to offer his dramatic ability here to bring as much reality and severity as he can to the film. Even the way he walks and maneuvers through a scene Fiennes very much steps with purpose and has that emphasis on the considerations of it all seems to be actively weighing on him at all times. Fiennes’s brow is burdened with the thoughts of what his duty is and grants us immediately that sense of a man who is filled with doubts about his faith and about himself. 

Fiennes being the consummate professional as a performer does seek to really make anything he can in the part to add a little more while very much servicing the story. Take even the very judicious albeit simple moment of taking his time with his reading glasses where Fiennes very much adds just a believability within the whole act of ceremony, that adds in the time he takes in these moments that adds the reality of someone needed to do something minor everytime in order to proceed. But further is the exposition upon exposition that Fiennes either needs to hear or deliver, such as when it comes to going from one moment to the next of setting up the titular conclave, hearing when he gets every little tidbit of potential complication as the conclave is about to begin. Fiennes has a great ability in his delivery to often underplay the gravitas, because he has such innate gravitas it comes out more naturalistic despite being often fairly overt lines. Fiennes will emphasize at times but more often benefits from his own grand presence because he can create the levels of that weight so effortlessly. Fiennes brings the right quality in the early scenes of the film as the not quite neutral head of the Conclave, however a man who will attempt to proceed with what he sees as a degree of impartiality. Something we see in his interactions with the key players vying for the papacy which includes the liberal favorite Aldo (Stanley Tucci), the African conservative Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), the overt Italian conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the moderate Tremblay (John Lithgow) and the obviously going to be important if you’ve seen the Best Man surprise Cardinal late entry dark horse Benitez (Carlos Diehz). 

Fiennes again just brings an ease to his performance in hitting each note with relative but wholly convincing ease. With Tucci’s Aldo, Fiennes brings a nice warmth initially where you see the sense of an old friendship, held back just a bit for being appropriate to the situation, and even a little extra modest Fiennes’s in his delivery to suggest his admiration for the man he initially wants to see as Pope. Contrasting that is with Tedesco where Fiennes is terrific in presenting the impartiality as far as he can in his reactions to the man’s overt racism and espousing beliefs that Lawrence clearly finds deplorable. Fiennes brings the restrained disgust and quiet disinterest in the man in general within a surface graciousness. With Lithgow who Lawrence suspects is untrustworthy, in part due to an unverified claim that he as fired by the Pope, but I’m thinking more so because he’s played by John Lithgow, Fiennes brings a cautious distance and an exacting stare as he tries to uncover the truth of the man. With Benitez Fiennes offers a graciousness to the man initially within his eyes a quiet sense of interest due to the secretive nature of the man’s appointment. Lawrence though surprises all by opening the voting with a speech of his own, a character point of action that I feel still comes too early, but anyway, we get Fiennes amplifying the weight with such ease in his delivery that when Fiennes gives the speech about the sin of certainty, you absolutely believe it as the truth through his power as a performer. Fortunately, or unfortunately for Lawrence it leads to him receiving unexpected votes making him a player in this race too. 

The film then becomes the game of revelations where Fiennes must be the one often delivering the moment of action, the first coming in as early favorite Adeyemi is faced with a nun he had an affair with in the past. Leading Lawrence to confront him, and Fiennes is great in the way he brings just the right degree of a comforting warmth as he informs Adeyemi he will never be Pope, while still having this direct strength with his performance as he bluntly tells the man the truth. Meanwhile he finds damning evidence that Tremblay is crooked, where Fiennes is also terrific this time in bringing no warmth but more a righteous indignation as he stares down a man he knows to be phony. He’s also very effective in his dueling scenes between Tucci and Diehz. With Diehz, Benitez admits to voting for Lawrence, which Fiennes initially brings a real humbleness and surprise to this man. When it seems more that his vote could cost Aldo the election initially, Fiennes becomes more forceful in one of his loudest deliveries of “I don’t want your vote” which while bigger still tuned ideally for the role, as he reveals less a man trying to convince Benitez he’s not worthy, but rather trying to reinforce to himself that he is unworthy in his own mind. With Tucci in each successive scene, where it goes from Lawrence cautioning action against the much more direct Aldo to eventually Lawrence being the insistent one, is strong work from Fiennes as he goes from that more deferring quality in his early scenes, to just tipping his work to a more overt confidence to the point when he says that Aldo is too cowardly, Fiennes doesn’t deliver it with a hint of hate, but just a blunt truth in seeing his friend isn’t quite there to be the true leader. Their friendship though still feels intact and when Lawrence reveals his Pope name to Aldo, as it seems like he could win, Fiennes’s simple yet just so assured delivery of “John” shows a changed state in the relationship yet still the friendship remains. 

It probably sounds like all I do is have praise for Fiennes, which is largely true and what I’m about to get into isn’t a criticism of Fiennes rather just of the limitation of the part. Lawrence states his overall conflict with his faith and his complicated relationship with the Pope’s death since he was seeking to retire from his position just before he died, but the Pope insisted he stay. And bits of here are just a little messy, particularly the relationship part as we have a key scene where Lawrence enters the Pope’s sealed chambers to find evidence against Tremblay, and we have Fiennes break down over the Pope's death. Great emotional work from Fiennes, absolutely convincing, but the weight of it is a bit obscured because the relationship just is a little too vague at a fundamental writing level. Even the idea of Lawrence’s faith, beyond the faith in himself that part works, but the faith overall always feels indistinct for much of it then too easy by the end of it as you get the simplest good versus evil showdown between Benitez and Tedesco that makes it all seem far too easy to decide the conclave. Benitez becomes the easy person to believe in, and Lawrence is all but satisfied until we get the twist that the dark horse is intersex, but thankfully the Pope already knew about making it so Lawrence has no real decision to make. The reason I jammed that altogether is because it feels jammed together narratively, and too easily so as the previous Pope being truly all knowing makes it so Lawrence gets easy certainty by the end of it without truly having to make a decision. Which by the way,  none of this is Fiennes’s fault, he does what he can with these bits, it just never becomes as powerful of an arc to acceptance of Diehz as it could’ve been. The twist is there, but the film barely reckons with it. Having said that, Fiennes still has a final moment of greatness in his performance where he returns a turtle in the Vatican to outside, where Fiennes does so much in his walk and his expression that we see the weight from before is now alleviated, and you see man content in his more modest plight. And while I wish the final revelations to get Lawrence to this point were articulated by the script in a more dynamic, less simplistic, fashion Fiennes still delivers on that final note. Much like how Fiennes delivers throughout the film, he consistently elevates the material, every line he finds the avenue for, and is the most captivating aspect of the entirety of the film. And while this might not be my favorite performance of is, it is regardless a strong testament to his immense talent. 

Best Actor 2024: Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice

Sebastian Stan received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Donald Trump in The Apprentice. 

The Apprentice follows the rise of a young Donald Trump under the tutelage of crooked lawyer/power broker Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). 

I will say Stan getting this nomination at all is quite the achievement as he managed to go the distance of lawsuits to prevent the film from being released, dealing with his own fellow performance in A Different Man, and dealing with who I’m told is a fairly charged figure at the moment, I should note I live on Mars. But the biggest of all is the challenge of the performance itself. It is one thing to play a real person, it is another thing to play a real person that almost all viewers have a strong knowledge of how they look, behave, sound etc., it is even more so when that person has such an extreme personality and mannerisms that it is hard to see how one could possibly believably play such a part without falling into overt caricature, given caricature is the starting point. Thankfully Stan comes at that whole complication with a honestly kind of a masterful choice considering the challenge in front of him, which is approaching the creation of Trump as an objective within his performance. As the opening of the film, Stan’s amount of mannerisms that one would immediately identify as Trump are pretty light, vague would be probably the best description in that you might sense some minor accent, but nothing too thick, which keeps him from starting as that caricature. Instead Stan allows you into accepting Trump as a person as a character within the scheme of the film first, before we get to other things later. As we come in with Trump before he really is any public figure and instead is just a rich kid essentially trying to go to the restaurants to see if he can spot any actual power players. So there’s a pitfall already that Stan tiptoes around because there was potential to be too much of an innocent in the early scenes, something Stan avoids remarkably. Although corruption will be the arc, Stan’s performance isn’t from a good person to a bad person, he makes it a little more complicated than that. 

From the outset Stan’s performance rather purposefully portrays a man searching for something to be, as when you see him admiring the power players from afar it is with a keen interest in his eyes, and already some desire for whatever it is that they have. When Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) spots him and invites him over, Stan isn’t playing the naive innocent rather the sycophantic note looking for some kind of favor. What I think Stan does so well is his ability not to overplay a note, as to come in as the guy seeking this approval or way through others could’ve been an overdone note of just seeking so thinly, but Stan consistently brings more to the role than that. There is the putting on the front seeking to show his admiration for Cohn and his friends, but his asking for help with the cases he and his father are facing from Federal charges, there’s a genuine though not good quality in his asking of Roy to be his lawyer. Stan brings an innocence but the innocence doesn’t denote a goodness, rather just the lack of knowledge of how anything works in the world of political backdoor dealings, there is though the eagerness all the same in trying to find some way in. There is some reservation in Stan’s work, some moments where his eyes reflect someone not at all within the world at Cohn at this point when he doesn’t really want to drink or is even surprised by just how blunt Cohn is in terms of his more nefarious connections. Stan’s hesitation he plays though again is never of disgust precisely towards the immorality at least, but rather a more genuine surprise fitting for someone who really doesn’t know this way, yet in his way is making the choice to also begin taking this path himself. 

Cohn takes Trump under his wing which begins the journey of this film, and while some may balk at giving Trump any humanity to lose through the scheme of the film, I would say creating a dramatic arc tends to be more compelling that a character who starts fully evil, continues to be fully evil then stays evil. But what works about it anyways, is it is not that Trump is depicted as good, just he’s not on the level of Cohn at the start, which is a whole different thing. What Stan does so well is create a natural balance that does humanize Trump, but humanizes him in a way in which we do see a downfall in his morality, however it is a walk rather than a leap. In one of the earliest scenes between Cohn and Trump, Trump is trying to get Cohn specifically remove the federal charges that are built around denials for African Americans. The line that is key and Stan makes a meal out of is when he argues to Cohn that their company does allow African Americans into their housing with this mix of phoniness and misplaced earnestness as though he’s getting some kind of brownie points for it, before following up to explain that to get housing they have to prove they have far greater income than is the standard. Stan in the one line does several pivotal impacts, one is that his explanation isn’t a real defense of actual morality rather just a selling point, there’s no actual shame even if he’s shameless, however the actual presentation of the shamelessness and the sell is relatively subtle without someone who really knows how to sell a fairly faulty point at this avenue. Stan presents the man still learning with the leaning less of good or evil, but rather just the level of shame presented. The scene that soon follows, after Cohn  wins the case through blackmail, where Cohn coaches Trump’s phone interview, to go bigger, where Stan’s hesitating delivery to go bigger is just perfect, how he makes the awkward jumps to sell his Trump tower as bigger and better than any in the world, and the ups and downs in his rhythm are ideal in Stan’s performance. We start to hear a bit more of the Trump delivery in his voice and we start to see the basis from which he will expand in more ways than one. 

The most human elements we do see come in the scenes where we see Trump at home with his family and later also with his first wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova). The former we get two important relationships, the one with his father Fred Sr. (Martin Donovan) and Trump’s older brother Fred Jr. In the former relationship we see Stan bring the same attempted approving manner in his delivery, something he gets from Cohn, but his father almost always consistently shuts down. With his brother Stan fashions the least calculated chemistry out of any in these scenes. We just see brothers between them and even a bit of warmth in a connection. You get a sense of their history with Stan just playing a certain sincerity more so than any other moment in his entire performance, as really does, at this moment, look up to and care about his brother, despite his brother being treated as a failure by their father. The other is with Ivana, which is where Stan is extremely successful in the way he plays within the image of Trump in the eyes of her. We both get a potential better man and a much worse man in tandem in these scenes. Stan in presenting his interest in her in the lower key moments of being attracted to her and admiring her, he’s very earnest and creates even a charming chemistry between himself and Bakalova early on. However at the same time even some of his methods, we see the Cohn rub off on him, as he goes about brandishing his wealth a bit more and when doing so Stan’s performance is outstanding in the way he weaponizes these tipping points towards something broader. It becomes the shades of a side to him at first, and in turn in these moments we get a bit more of the Trump breathing, the Trump delivery all becomes a little stronger, not too much but just enough. Stan is effortlessly convincing in this and more importantly you accept him as such as he builds up just a little bit more towards the expected version of Trump. 

The build up of the nature of Trump is so key here as we see him go about getting his Trump tower financed through rather duplicitous means including a massive state tax break that even Cohn is taken aback by the boldness and shamelessness. Stan’s delivery of the scene with the potential investors is so good where he says he has it all in his “pocket”, there’s a little build to convincing himself, something he won’t need later, but there’s growing confidence once he gets the words out. His posture gets a bit more swagger and Stan shows the way Trump begins to fully own the idea of making ridiculous promises that he just assumes he can keep, or maybe not even that. Stan is amazing throughout these scenes as he begins to show the wavering sides, there’s hints of the naive guy looking for the name for himself, but we also begin to see the man who firmly believes in his own hype. Stan starts to deliver daggers when the immoral bluntness begins to take hold that much more, such as when he begins to remark his wife as his business partner, with such callous disregard. Any of the love we might’ve seen, even hints of charm in that relationship are gone, and there is just a black hole there. Something that once again seems to become amplified when Trump’s most human connection is lost after his brother dies, and the scene afterwards where Ivana tries to comfort him is just outstanding work from Stan. Stan brings such genuine devastating emotion in the emotional distress, where you see the real sense of grief in there just nearly completely bursting out at every seam of the man, but as Ivana tries to comfort him, his attacks at her to “keep away from me” are as convincing in portraying the man trying to purge himself of any of that kind of weakness even if it is in this vile twisted way that rejects his very humanity. 

 

After that point Stan turns his performance just a bit more, the voice is even closer now, the mannerisms even more overt, everything getting closer to the known image of Trump, though with just the right convincing distance given he is playing a younger Trump, where Stan rather brilliantly matches up also in giving the outward facing version of the man in his TV interview scene. Stan starts showing a man who has fully accepted his hype without exception so he begins to basically brandish his own personality, and brandishes it by turning it up to a brazen shamelessness. When Trump states his goals or his intentions with everything, there is always the degree of the oversell now which Stan does so well in just now being rid of any hesitation. Now the selling constantly is just second nature and every bit of it is just who he is now. I particularly love the scene with his father, who is now suffering from dementia, where Stan has still a certain petulance to it, as the son of the disapproving father but now his manner towards him is mocking as the man with the power wanting to show his dad up instead of getting his  approval. His scenes with Bakalova are particularly disturbing because where Bakalova still plays towards someone trying to connect in affection with one another, Stan presents a man who dismisses her as just a waste of time for himself at this point. When he says he is no longer attracted to her, Stan is truly brutal, because there’s not a hint of the old affection but rather speaks like he’s talking about his old car that has gotten too rusty. He only shows any genuine, though not positive, emotion when she begins to make fun of him back, where Stan brings such a terrifying degree of ferocious pathetic insecurity as he goes about raping her as an act of pure hatred. 

After that we get to basically the final form of Trump where Stan’s masterful approach comes fully to fruition, where he has become just about the Trump caricature in terms of the mannerisms, the intonation of his voice, the effort of his breathing, the "stank face", the common places of impression are now there, but the way Stan went about it was to make us completely believe him. He does not become a cartoon version, rather we’ve seen him grow into this state bit by bit, so he becomes completely believable even when being the broadest version of Trump. The fascinating part is that Stan does this little by little so eloquently that you have just accepted him as such, but even more so he’s so successfully makes it completely go hand in hand with the arc of Trump fully embracing corruption. Where in Strong’s performance we saw the humanity of Cohn as he contracts AIDS and starts dying, Stan on the other hand purges any remaining feature of Trump’s humanity as such a striking contrast to Strong. Now when we see Stan in the boardroom, on tv or wherever, Stan absolutely owns every word, so confidently, so much without hesitation, not a hint of shame, in fact an overt shamelessness to everything he does. Stan shows that Trump is no longer playing the part he is the part and just now believes himself to be everything he claims he is. Even little moments that are comedic speak to this, such as arguing with his doctor over basic health facts, or announcing his enjoyment of cheese balls, Stan speaks as a man so sure of every idea he has in his head that there is no argument he can lose, at least in his own mind. That’s combined with the callousness now being something he doesn’t even need to try for. One moment that would seem mostly about Strong, where Cohn falls apart realizing that his friendship with Trump has been meaningless, Stan is as important, because watch him throughout the scene, there isn’t a hint of empathy or care, every reaction from Stan is just that he’s seeing a burden he has to deal with, not a friend he’s trying to celebrate one last time. Stan delivers a truly great performance that avoids every potential pitfall he could’ve fallen into. Honestly he performs something I thought nearly impossible, since it would be so easy to have just become a surface caricature. Stan makes you believe him as Trump, makes you believe this portrait of Trump, which doesn’t reject the mannerisms or voice, but rather finds a way to cultivate it slowly into an essential final facet on this striking portrait of corruption. 

Best Actor 2024

 And the Nominees Are:

Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown 

Colman Domingo in Sing Sing

Adrien Brody in The Brutalist

Ralph Fiennes in Conclave

Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice

Best Supporting Actor 2024: Results

 5. Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain - Culkin doesn't give a bad performance but it does feel like he's coasting a little too much in his wheelhouse at times and isn't nearly as charming as the film believes him to be. 

Best Scene: First meeting the group. 

4. Edward Norton in A Complete Unknown - Although I didn't fully believe his Pete Seeger mannerisms, I believed the quiet warmth he brought to the role. 

Best Scene: Seeing Woody for the last time. 

3. Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice - Broad in a way that worked in creating the prince of darkness then pulling the rug out from under you by revealing the vulnerable pathetic man beneath it all. 

Best Scene: Birthday cake. 

2. Yura Borisov in Anora - Borisov brings so much to so many little moments in creating humor but also an essential building empathy that makes a great impact by the end of the film. 

Best Scene: Staying overnight. 

1. Guy Pearce in The Brutalist - Good predictions Robert, Lucas, Bryan, Luke, Tahmeed, A, Shaggy, Jonathan & Tony. I'll admit I was looking for reasons to not love Pearce here when reviewing the performance strangely enough, but the more I wrote about the film the more I found to love in his portrayal of a depraved exploiter who can put on a bright smile but don't believe it as it covers up a snake. 

Best Scene: Story of his grandparents. 

Best Supporting Actor 2024: Guy Pearce in The Brutalist

Guy Pearce received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. in The Brutalist. 

Guy Pearce has finally got his Oscar nomination, which is one of those things that is merely a ridiculous notion given his great work in films like L.A. Confidential and Memento where he should’ve easily made a given five. Regardless, we can all take a moment and appreciate that his overdo recognition has finally come due. I have to admit though as much as Pearce was receiving the “buzz” for this performance in this film, I did have certain concerns going into this film, because as much as Pearce is a great actor who has excelled in many complex roles of various personalities, I always found he struggled a bit with straight villains, so coming into this film where he was said to play the villain, I had my concerns. And I will admit my concerns were not alleviated when he entered into the first scene where László Tóth (Adrien Brody) was finishing work with his cousin in refurbishing Pearce’s rich Harrison Lee Van Buren’s office in his mansion into a reading room at the behest of Harrison’s son. Something that falls onto deaf ears as Harrison, and Pearce storm into the room/film. And Pearce is all into this scene, screaming near the top of his lungs, his face red and just pure rage in the scene as he unleashes a tirade about the men ruining everything, despite their protests and explanations, still yelling as they leave his presence. A scene that is a whole lot, and Pearce is at such an intense level at the moment I was honestly very concerned that this would be Pearce’s setting for much of the film and we would get the singular arch portrayal of a villain we’ve sometimes seen him fall into. 

Thankfully that is not the case and instead that actually feeds into the overall portrait of Pearce, which is a purposeful and brilliant creation of the old school industrialist from the top down. Everything that Pearce does on the cursory is crafting this very specific breeding to be the very best as the American expectation and very specifically of embodying the wasp culture, almost to be the ultimate wasp himself. And Pearce does pull this off, though in large part because after that first scene, and in most scenes much of what Pearce is doing is internalized and quieter, even if the overall creation is fairly broad. It’s a broadness that works in crafting very purposefully this exact type, not unlike, if he had any, the eventual offspring of Daniel Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood, but where we saw the old west still part of that man, this is a man of a similar mentality though designed by a fully “civilized” America. Pearce brings the upright posture, that isn’t just up straight it is dominating his scenes by just how controlled and commanding it all is. His voice of excessive schooling and breeding a way where his accent is a man who has worked long on the accent, not Pearce however, but rather Harrison which Pearce embodies as the man who wishes to present himself as a greater breed than everyone and everything. Something that is even evident in his second scene where he seeks out Tóth, now working on basic construction, in a much calmer fashion than we had seen in his introduction. 

Pearce is able to be charming here though the presentation of even that charm is one of immense privilege, where as much as Harrison does apologize for his behavior, there’s a very curious way that Pearce delivers it that is an essential truth to the character. Pearce does apologize while it isn’t false, there’s a specific way that Pearce has this urging tone behind it as though one should recognize and accept it. Pearce is believable enough yet there’s kind of a salesman quality, befitting a successful businessman, where Pearce’s performance does make the “sale” yet it doesn’t feel entirely honest either. In the apology, where Harrison notes his dying mother as reason for his emotion, along with much praise for the atypical designs of Tóth. Pearce’s performance as much as the admiration is real he makes something not quite right in a way, as much as he’s encouraging Tóth, wanting to make sure he will see him later, and making sure that Tóth was able to take a break from this work. Pearce’s eyes as he looks at him are bright, they are filled with a glowing optimism, but it isn’t with a traditional type of warmth. It is rather the sense of opportunity, there’s an underlying quality of greed even with the smile. As much as Harrison is presenting himself as just a “big fan” of what Tóth did, and an admirer, there is nothing so simple about it within Pearce’s work. There is more of a seed there of what will be truly Harrison’s nature as we progress in the film, even though he is more than a little disarming in this scene, Pearce still brings the sense of the man who is doing it all with a less ideal purpose even if he is presenting himself as this ideal. 

Harrison ends up inviting Tóth back to his estate as an honored guest where Pearce is truly amazing throughout this sequence. Perhaps the most pivotal of all his scenes is where he recants Tóth with his own story of success, and a bit of his family history. Every line here Pearce brings so much history and insight into, although as was the case with many of the performances of this lineup, several of these elements were not fully illuminated to me until the rewatch. Pearce’s whole way of delivering the lines about Harrison’s children's mother are a distance of meaninglessness, as though the relationship had no connection with him whatsoever. Pearce puts no emphasis on those lines and clearly was a person he held no affection for though it seems to suggest more than that. That is in stark contrast to his speaking about his mother, often referring to her by her first name. Pearce brings a familiarity with her name that has an ease about it and in a way referring to is not as just a loving son, although more on that for a moment. As we get the standout moment where Harrison relates the story of how his grandparents sought money from him after seeking his success, there’s such callous disdain that Pearce brings to every word but also combined with this prideful disregard. As he continues the story which includes mocking his money wanting grandparents by giving them an unsigned check, Pearce brings such a decided sense of self-satisfaction in describing what he did as more than just revenge but as though he’s teaching them. The most disgust in his voice came when they still begged and accepted a much smaller check, and Pearce’s portrayal has such a fascinating juxtaposition between obvious cruelty though presented as though he’s making a righteous overture. Something that follows that perhaps is one of the most precise insights into the character though is just as mentions his mother one more time and that they “did things for each other”. Pearce’s familiarity in that line is not of the loving son, same with the way he speaks her first name, Pearce in just his delivery suggests perhaps the relationship with his mother alludes to Harrison’s sexual nature, which I don’t think is simple as homosexuality, rather something fundamentally twisted starting with perhaps his mother’s relations with him. A moment that became more noticeable as an essential seed to what comes later, but there’s an even clearer moment that I was surprised I didn’t notice the first time around. Which is when he asks Tóth to describe his approach to architecture, Harrison’s reply that he finds their intellectual conversations stimulating, Pearce’s delivery is genius because he tips it just enough not to fascination but to arousal.

What Pearce’s performance ends up being is the idea of don’t be confused between having use for someone and kindness for someone, as much as Harrison seems to be being friendly to Tóth in these scenes, the truth is as even at his apparent nicest moment Harrison still an exploiter at his very core. Take even the dinner scene, where Pearce’s approach again alludes to more than what is spoken, as he speaks again with pride about Tóth but the pride is weird despite being genuine. Genuine in the pride Pearce is beaming with is for Harrison's own sake in his glint in his eyes isn’t of true care or concern, but rather of a man saying “This is mine” though the thing he owns in his mind is Tóth. I love how Pearce undercuts the actual appreciation with how he says that Tóth is well known in architectural journals, something that feels like almost a stumble in his delivery, a force of not really what Harrison cares about other than that it makes it so Tóth is something he can show off.  Even when Harrison shows Tóth his Jewish lawyer friend who promises to try to help Tóth bring his wife to America, when Tóth thanks Harrison with a pat, Pearce’s expression is so smug, so filled with satisfaction that isn’t warmth, but love of his own grand deed to consider another reason he is great. It is that ownership we see even when he calls upon Tóth to build a community building as a grand memorial for his mother, where Pearce’s excitement is real, his grand delivery is that of a man who loves it all, but never does it feel selfless. The nature of the man is hidden in plain sight in Pearce’s performance but he makes a good show of making you forget it. 

But as we see past the intermission point, as the men are well into prepping the construction, Harrison becomes that much more insidious. A few years later when they bring Tóth's wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), there is the key moment where Harrison mocks Tóth's still thick accent as that of a shoeshine man before throwing a coin at him. Pearce’s mocking tone isn’t of some complete switch but rather just of a man who is still playing with his property, he’s just a kid who is a little tired with his toy and wants to start messing with it more than appreciating it. The moment that is more important is the non-apology when he asks for the coin back, he says the joke went too far, but Pearce’s playful fixation on the coin is that even the handing of the coin is just another way to have fun with his toy. Something that continues from Tóth to Erzsébet though less overtly. There’s still a game he’s playing as playing the “great man”. A pivotal moment is Pearce’s conversation with Erzsébet as they ride in a car where they are speaking of a potential job in the city, and he again appears to be kind by offering her a potential job while also even suggesting he’d give her a ride to commute to the city with. All seemingly great things although he also shrugs off vagrants in Grand Central Station, something we’ll hear a few times in racist or prejudiced statements, where there’s no hesitation or even acknowledgement of it in Pearce’s performance. Rather he presents a man where such beliefs are innate and he doesn’t have to try to be racist or prejudiced, he simply is. But there’s even more where when Erzsébet remarks on a reference he makes, where Pearce’s reaction again is great where there’s an overcompensation to noting that he intended for her to get the reference, with again this needless put on confidence of man wishing to be so much more and designating his “good deeds” and "high class" to others. An element realized by the moment any real challenge comes. When Harrison supports cost cutting measures, there’s no empathy in Pearce’s delivery to Brody, it is blithe and blunt as someone who truly doesn’t care. When the whole project must be put on hold due to a railroad disaster, we get one of the realities of Harrison as Pearce brings back that rage from his first scene, as he becomes nothing more than a petulance brat with his delivery of “YES I CAN” as he becomes a boy whose model set fell apart as that is all it is to him on a fundamental level. 

Leaving us not to return to Harrison for some time as he eventually decides to finish the project, where he and Tóth go to Italy to get one more piece. Throughout the sequence there is a discomfort in Pearce’s performance for much of it, showing the man out of his domain out of his command and almost a more severe suspicion to everyone and everything around him. There’s a detached distance between him and everything else as you see the man finally out of control, until he finds Tóth in a heroin induced state. A scene that I think likely will be a point of contention for many who watch the film, though for me it works, and Pearce is essential in making work. One is in that earliest conversation setting up the strange allusions to his mother, his specific fascination with Tóth but also just his whole demeanor as someone who plays with everything he has power over. The Italy scene allowing Harrison to give into his vices openly, but also with Pearce setting up that detachment switching in the moment to now the man seemingly wanting to reassert his control as rapes Tóth. Where Pearce is disturbing through the natural ease of the act he brings in Harrison and that arousal he previously contained, now reveals itself as he rapes with fascination and disgust not for him but for Tóth as an idea of the "lowly" as he finds one more way to “play” with his toy. Giving Pearce only one final scene where Erzsébet confronts Harrison for his actions against her husband, however the focus on the scene is mostly away from Pearce. Pearce’s brief reaction still is pointed in giving just the quick moment of final realization for a second before barking to set things right again though his tantrum does not result in silence this time. Pearce finally delivers his great villainous turn here, through the creation of a man who is of a specific period, but is more than that. Pearce creates a damning portrait of a man defined by his privilege to be hollow and his ability to exploit not just for wealth, but for a stolen sense of purpose in one’s life. 

Best Supporting Actor 2024: Yura Borisov in Anora

Yura Borisov received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Igor in Anora. 

Anora follows stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) as she gets caught up in a whirlwind marriage with a client  Ivan, who is the wayward son of a Russian oligarch. 

Yura Borisov is a unique supporting actor Oscar nomination as typically the importance of such roles are more immediately obvious within the narrative, where in Anora in general it twists expectations of such a character than is the usual expectation. As quite simply the character is a thug henchmen who we are first introduced as he’s sent by Ivan’s father’s watchdog Toros (Karren Karagulian) along with another henchmen Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) to try to get control of the situation. And the funny thing is despite having already been introduced to Borisov in a leading role in the wonderful Compartment No. 6, and even recognizing him from there, I didn’t really take any extra notice of him either when he first appeared given the tendency of non-American actors to be cast often as one note villains or just henchmen in American films, so this might’ve been just fitting into that stereotype. Regardless this is a performance that not only benefits from re-watching but is essential in a way to discover just how much Borisov is doing from the outset since there’s little reason to believe he will be important when his initial appearance literally is as Russian thug Igor. But re-watching you do see Borisov laying the groundwork for the character from his first scene where he’s riding in the car with Garnick and hearing about the situation of potentially Ivan having married Ani, creating a headache for most, and Borisov’s naturalistic laugh as the ridiculousness of the situation pretty much instantly establishes what is behind the character. 

When they initially enter the scene Borisov is low key hilarious in playing the awkwardness of the thug trying to figure out what to do in a situation where his bosses don’t know what to do in the situation either. Borisov’s performance works by not really knowing how to present himself as Borisov puts on believable enough sort of “tough guy” distance, while also having little glances in his eyes that denote an awkwardness of not being entirely sure really where to look or how to present himself entirely. You have his brief moments with Ani early on where he introduces himself as Igor. Borisov’s delivery of saying his name is comedic perfection in how rushed and really just strange he makes it sound, though in the rushing there’s a strangely sweetness about it albeit still very awkward. Unfortunately such fumbled pleasantries stop when they find out Ivan and Ani have officially eloped leading Ivan to run off like a complete fool and Ani attempts to do the same leaving Igor to try to keep her put. And again Borisov is hilarious in his very specific timing and really comedic chemistry with Madison in this scene despite the moment being of extreme conflict. As she comes at him by throwing things at him, and Borisov’s dodging then his screaming for her to stop is tilted in just the right way, where he is the thug, but there’s something very human about the way he is doing it that is genuine making it hilarious in the same way. Unfortunately his attempts at verbal subduing fail as he physically attempts to do so leading her to bite him, where Borisov’s faces are just wonderful in being convincing in the reality while in no way hiding some of the ludicrousness of the situation. 

Something that continues as he continues to also interact with Garrick and Toros, where Borisov’s comic timing is terrific in his reactions to each. First where Garrick insists he lets Ani go, despite Igor’s protests that she’ll run, leading her to letting her go and she starts to try to escape leading to Borisov’s hilarious delivery sarcastically noting the obvious leading to go back to holding Ani again. That is until Toros shows up who too questions why they are holding her in place, and you get just a great face from Borisov as he’s holding Ani with this strange sort of conviction that he will keep maintaining his guard as awkwardly as possible knowing what will happen if he lets go. Additionally, having a moment where he reveals the bite mark from Ani as a warning to Toros with a wonderful glance attached as a bit of warning. Once the four sort of combine forces to find Ivan, Borisov has a lot of little moments throughout the sequence. We get the moment where one of Ivan’s friend’s tries to menace the group with a bat, only for Borisov to suddenly bring out genuine menace as it knocks it away as though it is nothing, then takes it to unload on the candy store the friend works for. Borisov is making the most though even of just the casual way he grabs some popcorn in the broken popcorn machine he just broke, or the bit of fun he has with the bat for a moment as they are all walking to the next place Ivan might be. Borisov just adds a little bit more of business, not in a way that feels like seeking needlessly attention but in a way that adds just a bit more comedic energy and character to every moment he’s in. One of my favorite’s as such is his very struggled way of saying “bender” when trying to theorize where Ivan might be. 

What the central value of Borisov’s performance though is to allow Igor to go from henchmen who assaults, or at least batters…let’s leave the debate to Igor and Ani themselves, to seemingly the only person who cares about her in the film. What Borisov needs to do is earn this transition throughout, which he does with even just that sheepish introduction of himself to Ani and only continues as we proceed. A lot of moments of Borisov’s performance are just in the briefest reaction shots, but Borisov handles each one so beautifully. You just see in his eyes honest concern in moments, and more so a real empathy when he sees the blithe way that Ani gets treated by so many throughout. Borisov nicely builds the empathy from moment to moment and you get a greater sense of his real care in each successive scene. This is built upon though through some key conversations, which Ani initially is naturally more than a little hostile towards Igor given his previous treatment of her. Borisov brings a great energy though in his not quite naive but kind “big lug” quality. Such as when they stop to eat, and Igor is trying to understand her insult of him with a big bite of burger in his mouth that is adorable for the lack of a better description. Borisov though is also pitch perfect in his delivery of explaining that he’s not a drug dealer or anything. There’s a simple sweet honesty he brings to every word and trying to present himself as just a guy who really isn’t in any particularly special circumstances himself. 

Borisov through these small moments builds up to the big one where Igor asks in front of everyone that Ivan apologize to Ani for his behavior. Something that is earned in Borisov’s performance and would have seemed forced if not for the building empathy of his performance. Leading to two standout moments in the film where Ani, now with her marriage annulled, gets to stay one more time at Ivan’s large estate overnight with Igor staying on the couch to drive her home the next day. It’s a great scene because you get to see both with the situation now being limited, while Ani is still giving Igor the proverbial shit over his restraint of her before, they have a pitch perfect comedic chemistry. Now in the digs on Ani’s part and the defense on Igor’s, Borisov and Madison bring a warmth even in the defense and attacks, showing two people naturally connecting even in as strange of circumstances as theirs are. Leading to the final scene where Igor leaves off Ani at her house with the end of the situation in sight and her old existence back to where she was which isn't much. Borisov is terrific again not by doing a lot, but keeping it small in just accentuating any chance the care and concern within the warmth, showing him not looking at Ani as an object, or even a task, but as another human. Leading to the final moment where she begins to have sex with him, but instead just ends up breaking down in his arms, the most human in the film, not for the sex but the blunt caring tenderness in Borisov’s face as he cradles her in a genuinely comforting embrace. Borisov delivers a great performance that reveals the man behind the thug, and naturally finding the humor and essential humanity behind the “type”. 

Best Supporting Actor 2024: Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice

Jeremy Strong received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. 

For me Jeremy Strong has one of the stranger trajectories as an actor in terms of my own opinion, as to not beat around the bush, I found him quite the terrible overactor for so many of his early appearances and it wasn’t until his outstanding work on Succession that I was able to see the potential. Of course I pondered if it was something with sort of expanded time frame that allowed his Succession work to grow, although to his credit he seemed to have an idea of who Kendall Roy was from the first episode something that wasn’t entirely true for a few of his fellow cast members and really the show itself. But even with that great performance under his belt I still had seen similar tendencies in his performances in a few films, though the end result was superior to his earlier cinematic work albeit imperfect. That leads us to his performance in the Apprentice following the rise of a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) to power from the 70’s to the 80’s. Strong taking on the role of Roy Cohn, a role that I’ll say probably plays nicely into Strong’s weaknesses in a way, because to preface this is not a completely new Jeremy Strong by any means here, but it is a role that is more suited to the approach. Because the real Roy Cohn was a pretty ridiculous caricature to begin as a man, and take one of Strong’s choices in this role, which is his frequent head bobbing back and forth like he’s a human vulture, befitting someone who basically feasted off corpses as a power broker and lawyer in more ways than one, well that actually was a mannerism of the real Roy Cohn and looked as strange as when Strong does it. But I’ll give Strong the credit in both ways, it is a representation of the real person but even as an archer approach, I have to admit it also works. 

So from the outset of the film, Cohn, while a real person, is in a way the prince of darkness within the early scenes of the film, and the film positions him as such. And one of the great bits of impression, that becomes just part of his performance and speaks most to the nature of the character it would seem, is the completely soulless eyes that Strong manages to pull off as constant. Something that serves him well from the outset as the devil first catching sight of Trump and urging the younger hopeful someday mogul to come see him. And the achievement of the performance begins here, though how it actually realizes itself comes later, but watching the film for a second time illuminated specifically what Strong does here that is so effective. And yes Strong is very big here but again it is within a role that is suitable for the approach. As we get the dead eyes, the birdlike posture, the thick accent with a consistently callous delivery, it is all put on pretty broad, but it works as such. Strong as much as he’s a caricature, he’s a convincing caricature as a man who presents himself as such and more importantly owns that as a part of the power. An essential facet of what Strong does is within even though you could take him as a joke the power of the character feels innate and exudes off of him. As much as he might seem ridiculous, you still very much feel the calm menace of the character because Strong creates the sense of danger that exists in a man who is without shame, care and just owns his immorality. There’s a certain sale that Strong is always pitching, though only as the most confident of pitchmen, who can rattle off his “accomplishments” and his prestigious and dirty associations as second nature to him. 

The course of action for the first act of the film is Cohn taking on Trump as his titular apprentice, by helping Trump with his legal lawsuits against his father’s company. Strong is entertaining just to watch here in playing just into every bit of the cutting nature of Cohn as he shows Trump not only how to sell himself as the best but also how to go to the throat in every situation. Strong’s performance brings more than anything the shamelessness in every bit of his physical and verbal acts of his performance. Whether it is denoting his rules of basically lying, cheating and attacking all opponents no matter what, Strong brings the wisdom of a sage just filtered through the sleaziest of mentalities but with the relaxed and striking manner of someone who knows that it also works. We see him handle himself in court, which is less of a lawyer who is making the best objections or legal angles, rather just as someone who is always willing to go to the lowest common denominator at every hurdle. He brings the same approach when bringing out the dirt against someone to get his way, Strong doesn’t play these moments differently rather just accentuating another tool in his crooked box. Strong approaches these moments as Cohn as having the clearest experience as even when he makes ridiculous objections it is with the absolute precision of someone who doesn’t care and will continue to cut through no matter what. He brings the bluntness of a sledge hammer as a man and Strong’s performance has that force within it. Strong shows Cohn as a man who can proudly deliver the line “if you’re indicted you’re invited” without hesitation or reservation, rather Strong presents it with ownership. One particularly effective bit is when he encourages Trump also to go bigger, such as silently urging him on in an interview to oversell his Trump tower as the “best ever”. Strong’s movements are of the life coach guru, just twisted as a corpse like life like guru on how to sell lines. This is in fact a very funny performance, although achieving the same types of laughs he got in Succession where it is more so the lack of awareness more than anything, yet Strong pulls that off brilliantly and differently from Succession here. It is just Cohn being himself, the horrid self he is, so when he catches the bouquet at Trump’s wedding to Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and celebrates it, it’s very funny however part of it is how completely unknowing Strong shows it to be as why anyone would be offended by it is, is part why it is funny. 

And while I might’ve just enjoyed this performance about owning a caricature, I must give Strong more credit than that, particularly upon re-watch where there is an exceptional setup and payoff with his performance that works in large part due to his approach. Now to begin with there are subtle moments in the overall broad nature of the turn to begin with, such as I do love the moments where Trump throws out a particularly hard task for him, and there’s a pause in Strong’s performance where he shows quietly that even Cohn is a bit taken aback by how brazen Trump is willing to go in his own schemes. The greater impact however is within when the power dynamic between the two shifts as Trump becomes secure in his place while suddenly Cohn starts to seem the hanger on. It’s fascinating because Strong’s performance turns that guy who was so innately in command, begins to look so small and even silly as some artifact that Trump would rather be rid of, just by no longer presenting his own manner with that same power behind it. The idea combines with Cohn getting AIDS and what we have is a complete 180 shift here. Because what Strong brings from the callous villain of the first act to a truly vulnerable man. Strong does so in part by just bringing the increasing physical weakness in each scene that goes from a nagging cough to clearly a man being sucked off all his life slowly, but through that physical vulnerability he also brings emotion. When now Cohn is the one asking for favors, in this case trying to maintain housing for his secret lover, Strong’s excellent in falling apart suddenly, and becoming the fool as everything he did before indicates his power now indicates his wavering ability. Strong brings more overt emotion, and in doing so successfully shows the humanity of the character after it is too late. There is the greatness of this performance by Strong pulling the rug from Cohn by wholly flipping the power dynamic but even more so the presence of the man. It is so striking because the man that seemed so blithely in control as the caricature, now is the one seeking just a bit of help and nearly begging for it which Strong portrays with genuine desperation and suddenly an actual person. Strong makes him no longer the Prince of darkness, now he’s just a dying man asking for help. Strong pulling off quite the achievement by, I wouldn’t say make you feel bad for Cohn, but what he does do is find the tragedy even in an evil man. As Strong’s greatest scene, the one where he's the most intimate, emotional, and involved is when Trump seems to make good on their old friendship by having Cohn over to celebrate his old friend’s birthday, and even gives him a gift of expensive cufflinks. Strong’s fantastic in the moment of describing the gift to Ivana, because in his delivery he’s so small, you see the weakness of his physical state, but you also see an earnestness for once in the man as there is real just honest tenderness as speaks of the gift with such meaning behind the words as it indicates that someone loves him. Ivana however painfully reveals to Cohn that the cufflinks are fake, showing that Trump’s final show of care for his "family" is just an inconvenience for him, leaving Strong to be genuinely heartbreaking in his clearest show of emotion in the entire film as Strong's intense breakdown in seeing the meaningless of the display for him as Trump rolls out a birthday cake for him. Heartbreaking because what Strong manages to show is less that Cohn had any good in him, rather just the tragic realization in the man through this release of overwhelming emotion that his sins truly led him to be nothing more than a shallow unloved husk seeing nothing but a void waiting for him in death. Strong delivers a great performance here. Where his broad approach is one fitting for the character, however more so is utilized so well by making it part of the overall characterization where as Strong only finds the humanity in the role when it is as Cohn realizes too late what he's been lacking in his whole wasted life.