For the second year in a row, this may well have
been the weakest of the four individual acting categories (although it came on
strong in the final weeks)– but that’s more depth than anything else, and the
top performances here are as good as any year. Some performances that I
consider for the top 10 that didn’t make the cut include: Jesuthasan
Antonythasan in Dheepan is great as a man with a dark past trying, and
ultimately failing, to change. Josh
Brolin in Hail, Caesar! Gives a wonderful comedic performance, which takes
on surprising depth as it goes along. Jake
Gyllenhaal in Nocturnal Animals is essentially playing two roles here, and
does a good job of making them subtly different 0 more sympathetic, and then
slightly less so. Logan Lerman in
Indignation anchors this excellent Phillip Roth adaptation with the best
performance of his young career so far. Vincent
Lindon in The Measure of a Man deservingly won the Best Actor Prize at
Cannes 2015, for his excellent performance as a man trying to find a job – and
when he does, realizing he’ll have to sell his soul to keep it. Anton Yelchin in Green Room is probably
the de facto lead, and he brings a nice humanity to his role as someone who has
no idea what he’s stepping into (especially hard to watch him in pain however,
given real world events).
10.
Michael Shannon in Midnight Special
Michael Shannon continues his excellent string of
work in the films of Jeff Nichols. While his work in Midnight Special may not
be as great as it is in Take Shelter, it’s still a wonderful performance – one
that any parent will instantly relate to. In the film, Shannon plays a father
who has kidnapped his own child to get him away from the cult that worships him
– and goes on a cross country journey to try to get him to freedom. The
performance here is all in the quiet moments – the way he will do anything for
his son (the quiet way he tells his son, “I like worrying about you” is one of
the most memorable of the year. In Shannon, Nichols has found his muse. They
are quickly becoming the best director/actor pairing in American movies right
now.
9. Ryan
Gosling in La La Land
Ryan Gosling’s performance in La La Land is perhaps
the year’s best “movie star” performance – the kind of performance that only
works because Gosling is a huge star, and has a ton of charisma to carry it
off. On paper, his Sebastian could have easily been a pretentious asshole, the
type of guy women suffer through dates on, as he rambles on about jazz and
purity, as the scan for the exits. Yet Gosling makes it work – in his hands, it
all cute and charming – and he gives the audience a knowing wink throughout.
What’s more, he eventually makes us actually care about this guy –enough that
he breaks your heart in the closing moments in the film. To a certain extent, Gosling’s
work here is very similar to his work in The Nice Guys or The Big Short –
Gosling has developed his movie star persona to be sure. But he deepens it,
just a bit here. I do hope that at some point, Gosling does something outside
his current movie star comfort zone again – but until then, as long as he’s
doing it this well, this mode in fine.
8.
Chris Pine in Hell or High Water
Since the Star Trek reboot made him a star, Pine
has been doing fine work – but it’s mainly been in movie star mode, which he
makes look effortlessly. In Hell or High Water, Pine does his best work to
date. He uses that movie star charisma to great effect – he gets us on his side
from the get go, and we don’t really question that until fairly late. It’s a
quiet, subtle performance – one in which you can feel how he carries the weight
of everything on his shoulders. This is the type of role that I wish more movie
stars would take on – it gives the film a different vibe with him in it, and it
works brilliantly here.
7.
Andrew Garfield in Silence
Andrew Garfield had a good year this year – he may
well get nominated (or has already been so) for his role in Mel Gibson’s
Hacksaw Ridge – and even if I have issues with the film, I do think Garfield is
excellent in that role (even if it’s rather one note). He’s far better though
in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, as a young priest who believes he knows all he
needs to know when he travels to Japan, and finds out just how wrong he is.
This is a role that often appears passive – especially in the first and last
acts – but Garfield really is doing a lot with his role – he brings forward
both his characters empathy and arrogance, which will combine to eventually
bring him low. This movie is in many ways a culmination of Scorsese’s career –
and this character a culmination of many Scorsese leads. And Garfield delivers
a performance that’s worthy to stand alongside them.
6.
Peter Simonischek in Toni Erdmann
Out of the two lead role, Simonischek has the
flashier one – we open with him, donning a lot of makeup, and his exaggerated
false teeth (he’ll wear those teeth through most of the movie). Simonischek is
not afraid to go over-the-top throughout the movie – fully embracing even silly
fart jokes. Yet, while he is great in those bigger moments, what makes his
performance truly wonderful is the undercurrent of depression that is
undeniably there throughout the entire performance. He goes big, and knows
other characters are laughing at him, and he doesn’t seem like he cares – but there
are those small moments, when he looks off to the side, when it hits. His final
scene is perhaps his quietest – and it is subtly heartbreaking. A great
performance in a great movie.
5.
Joel Edgerton in Loving
Joel Edgerton’s performance is perhaps the quietest
of any lead performance of the year – not only because he often doesn’t say
much, but even when he does, he does so in a quiet voice. He plays a white man
in love with a black women in Virginia in the 1950s – which is just about the
worst thing he could do. His wife is the more active of the pair – she makes
the decisions – but he is strong, quiet center of the couple, and the film – he
is not willing to bend or break for anyone. When he says, in response to the
question of what he wants them to tell the Supreme Court, he says simply “Tell
them I love my wife”. At the heart of this important case, and this movie,
comes down to that one, perfect line.
4.
Denzel Washington in Fences
In Fences, Denzel Washington gives a wonderful
performance as Troy Maxon – strict patriarch, in 1950s Pittsburgh, bitter and
angry at his lot in life – how he never really got a chance at his version of
the American Dream, who just may end up destroying what he does have. Troy
isn’t a bad guy per se – at least not at first. Washington imbues him with his
natural charisma and good cheer – you see why people like him so much as he
jokes with his friend, and later his wife. But when his younger son enters the picture,
Troy becomes darker – and angrier, even downright cruel and violent. Washington
did this role on Broadway a few years ago, and honed it to perfection. In the
film version, Washington rips into his every line of dialogue (and he has a lot
of them). Washington has been one of the best actors in the world for decades
now – occasionally though, he relies on his old tricks and natural skill. When
he wants to though, few can touch him. He wants to in Fences.
3.
Colin Farrell in The Lobster
Colin Farrell is a deadpan, comic delight in The
Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos surreal, disturbing satire about, well, I’m still
wrapping my head around that. From his first scene – checking into a hotel
where if he doesn’t find a mate in a month he’ll be turned into an animal of
his choosing, Farrell is barely off-screen for the next two hours – and he is
wonderful in every scene. His character has to bury his emotions – but one of
the reasons why the performance works so well, is that somehow Farrell still
makes sure the audience still knows he has them. Farrell has always been a
great actor, although he hasn’t really gotten the credit he deserves often.
Here, he delivers his best performance to date (and still, he isn’t getting
credit). He’ll get it someday.
2.
Adam Driver in Paterson
In a year of great, quiet leading actor
performances, Driver’s still stands out for how quiet and still it is. As the
title character, a bus driver in Paterson New Jersey, who takes comfort in his
routine and his poetry. He likes to listen in on his customers – he finds them
amusing. He loves his wife, who has a lot of crazy ambitions that he supports –
and she supports him as well. Driver does an excellent job at showing how the
minor fluctuations in his routine – a potential act of violence, a bus
breakdown – get to him underneath, even if he acts appropriately on the
surface. Driver has been doing great work for years now – and Star Wars has
made him a huge star – but one hopes he continues to do work like this, for
filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch. It is a perfect combination of actor and director
– and is one of the great performances of the year.
1.
Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea
Casey Affleck’s performance in Manchester by the
Sea joins the ranks of the greatest screen performances of the decade so far.
It is a truly remarkable performance, restrained, subtle, emotional, and
heartbreaking. He plays a man who is pretty much completely broken when the
movie begins – although we do not yet know why. He is alone, out of choice, and
lashes out in violence, or else simply wants to be left alone. During the
course of the movie we will both discover what actions of his ended up breaking
him – and see him slowly, ever so subtly, come out it just a little bit.
Affleck has been a great actor for a while now – although he seems selective
about what work he does. In Manchester by the Sea, he delivers his best
performance to date. The film finds a few moments of humor throughout – which
Affleck delivers in the same quiet way as everything else. His two biggest
scenes are both quiet as well – a conversation with his ex-wife, which he tells
her there is “nothing there”, and finally, in what is the line reading of the
year for me – when he tells his nephew “I just can’t beat it” – which is as
close as he comes to a breakdown. We’re lucky to get a few performances this
good in a decade.
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