Leland Orser did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Ansel Roth in Faults.
Faults follows a down on his luck "expert" of cults being tasked to deprogram a young woman Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) by her parents.
Leland Orser is another reliable character actor, however a character actor who tends to fulfill a certain kind of role. Which is if you need someone who seems like they're on the furthest edges and have in fact already fallen off Orser is typically the man for the job. Faults then offers a unique opportunity for Orser to take a leading role, though technically a leading role within his wheelhouse. We open the film as such as we see Ansel Roth eating at a hotel restaurant, where he has twice used a voucher to get a free meal. Orser already is completely dialed into this certain state of the man as he insists upon his right to his meal. There's already that intensity within his work that denotes a man who certainly has been through much, and has this sort of shakiness in his voice that shows even as he's trying to confidently make his case, he is not particularly convincing as such. Orser's innately discombobulated presence takes this a bit further as he brings to life a distinct dark comedy in the manner of Ansel as he first attempts to argue about it with his breaking delivery, but there's really great low key physical comedy in his manner of quickly eating the last bit of his meal before it can be taken away, followed by attempting to continue his meal by eating ketchup. Orser's physical timing is ideal in just bringing such a severe petulance in the act, before he is ushered out.
Ansel though is here slightly notably as an author of a famous book about the nature of cults and basically being an expert on cult deprogramming. But despite this Orser oozes with a pathetic state as his eyes are just filled with an exasperated anxiety as he struggles even to argue about getting his hotel room for another night and just tries to complain about his poster advertising his speaking engagement being knocked over with kind of a squeaking near whisper. Orser doesn't portray this as some new state that Ansel is in, rather Ansel has been in this state for a long desperate time. We see him in his speaking engagement where Orser brings just a hint more of confidence, not much more but rather enough of the sign of maybe some professional at some time presenting now the bare minimum effort. Although even that limited effort leads him to be attacked by the family member of a woman he deprogrammed that eventually committed suicide. Where Orser's delivery of the explanation is a wonderfully portrayed miserable deflection of explaining how it was still better that he did what he did even though she died. Orser's seething in this overflowing anxiety in trying to explain as basically a long prepared, yet still quite underwhelming, excuse for what he has done.
The plot kicks in when the parents of a woman in a cult come to Ansel with a request for him to help them in this challenging task. Orser's performance is a magnificent ballet of inadequate awkwardness as he almost instantly tries to exploit any money from them. Including his requirement that they pay him for his new, unpopular book, where Orser does a juggling of words to find the price with just brilliant nervous energy that is funny, while also showing just how desperate the man is to make even just a little bit of money. When he discusses the case, mostly for the meal they promised him, Orser again presents just a little bit more confidence, not a lot but just a little as he runs down what he'll need, although his accentuation of a "lot of money" instantly shows how it is entirely all that Ansel is fixated on when it comes to the opportunity. That and again the free meal, where Orser again brings some dark comedy in the way he both slides the bill over to the parents, and speaks his thank you for the meal as the most weak willed of demands rather than of any genuine appreciation for what they've done to him. Orser sets up effortlessly this extreme state of the money who is insecure about everything, has some very specific background where he had some success, but now only in need for whatever will sustain him for a bit more time.
And as he arranges for the kidnapping of Claire, Orser's performance does shift again naturally to the man in operation mode. He's again hardly some man exuding confidence, but what he does show is just that much more beyond even the speaking arrangement as he goes about something he has done before. Suddenly as he is giving out orders to his hired thugs, tasked with moving Claire into his deprogramming hotel room, there is finally a little more to him, not a lot but a little. Orser's particularly good in the moment where he's instructing Claire to follow his orders, lest the men "who aren't here friends" shall hurt her even though he won't. And in the moment you do get a glimpse of someone who has had some command of his methods, even if in a most limited amount. And such facades quickly fade as he begins with the actual start of the deprogramming where Orser is one man show of constantly switching between attempted forced upon confidence against the most extreme anxiety. Orser's is how the film thrives because of the way he approaches every moment there is a particular almost hard to specify energy in him making this act particularly unpredictable as he attempts, and frequently, fails to go through the steps with Claire in his so-called process. His moments of trying to put on this empathy and care in breaking her of her believes, while instantly shattering in his whole manner to be the man so filled with fear whenever she comes back with unexpected force, or when her father starts demanding strange orders like telling Claire that she looks pretty after she puts on tightly fitting clothes from when she was a teenager.
Eventually this leads to the main reveal of the film which spoilers this in fact an elaborate ruse where Claire is in fact a cult leader, her parents are fake and just members of the cult, and the whole setup is to in fact indoctrinate Ansel into the cult. So what happens is a strange dance of control when Claire begins to turn the table on Ansel, first by the technique of confusing him in the beginning before becoming more overtly dominant after some time. This is the instance that may flop entirely if not for Orser because so much relies on his performance to convincingly show us a deprogrammer getting programmed. And Orser is convincing as such by really building up the man defined by insecurities and that being exploited eventually. His performance portrays so effectively this desire for comfort within the nervousness, the insanity nearly things are spiraling out of control, so when Claire begins to comfort him, by basically offering specific controls for him, Orser earns it by showing the way Ansel as been looking for this for so much time. The particular moment of the transition is just outstanding work from Orser, because you see just how it is at this apex of the man approaching his nervous breakdown that is pulling him in every other direction. The emotional need was so incredibly severe and painful. The nervousness finally seems to find some genuine ease of his normally hectic state when she begins to manipulate him, and Orser being wholly convincing in portraying this fundamental shift. A shift that should be potentially ridiculous but one that Orser earns through how he builds to it, while also just in the moment the way he refocuses the intensity into his work, the way he looks at Winstead with this fascination and really sudden different kind of loving intensity. There's a bizarre kind of warmth in the moment that is great because it becomes extremely creepy, while also being convincing that the man is finding some sort of second life, in basically becoming a drone. And when she begins to order him, rather than the unfocused man without purpose, Orser is powerful in portraying this sudden eerie conviction in the man as he only follows orders and does exactly what she says. Orser's whole performance really is the key to the film, because so much is really focused on his carrying of the energy, in those moments of purposefully awkward dark comedy, the emotional desperation that leads us to believable see the de-converter become the converted.
