OVP: Best Actor (2017)
The Nominees Were...
Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
My Thoughts: We are going to, after a week off from the blog, hit the Big 4 categories at the Oscars & finish it off with a My Ballot look at 2017 this week. The 2017 acting races were largely focused on Best Picture, like so many fields for Best Actor recently (only one of these nominees doesn't show up again in our remaining categories), but I will admit out-front that unlike many fields for Best Actor, this one has some differentiation even if it's only Best Picture citations, and is one of the better fields in recent memory.
For starters, only one of these five figures is playing someone in real life, Gary Oldman. Oldman's performance in Darkest Hour for reasons that are both obvious & a little bit undeserved has not aged well. Placed against young performers who have delivered on that promise & an acting icon who has (so far) stuck with his plan to not come back from a second retirement, Oldman's prosthetics-driven work as Winston Churchill is generally name-checked as a "bad" acting win, but I'll be honest-I don't see it. Oldman takes on the guise of a character actor, becoming near unrecognizable as Churchill in appearance and manner, but still having the measured energy that makes an Oldman performance so special. I loved the way that he plays Churchill as a man-of-history, but also a man who understands politics (Churchill enjoyed winning in all aspects of life), and I think this is a good performance that doesn't get all of its grace from simply "looking like" Churchill.
Based on the title you'd assume that Roman J. Israel might actually be a real person, but he's not. Instead, he's from the creative mind of Denzel Washington, and more of our real-life people should be based on Denzel if this is the case. Despite its unusual (SNL-mocked) title and a plot that doesn't really work, Washington plays the twists in Dan Gilroy's story excellently. This might have read like a filler nomination when it came out, but it's very good work from the two-time Oscar winner. He finds so many layers into the loneliness that Roman experiences, and makes the greed he feels authentic as he finds success after a lifetime of failure. It's hard to have the center of a movie realize a new facet of their life and not also totally upend the character, but the Roman we meet at the beginning of the movie is the same man throughout, a testament to Washington's investment into small character details.
I have in the years since found Daniel Kaluuya performances (specifically Judas) that I can sign onto, so I am going to admit (and bury in the center of this article) that I didn't really get the hype around his work in Get Out. I liked this movie, and the script was very good (though, as I said two weeks ago, Us is much better & more fully-formed), but I think that Kaluuya's very reactive performance in this film never takes off for me. For me it's because he's not really asked to undergo a traditional narrative arc in terms of "learn what he's like, then we see how he handles the main problem of the story." Instead, all of his performance is trying to reflect how uncomfortable he is with the story. He's good at this, but it feels limiting to my understanding of this character-I feel like he's the one character not given enough room to breathe, which serves the narrative, but also makes this feel like a weird performance to cite.
There are moments initially where this feels like it might be the case for Timothee Chalamet. After all, so much of the first thirty minutes of this movie is him reacting to the world around him, including his new crush Oliver. However, as the film goes, we get a sense of not only young love, but young love that doesn't know that there's a ticking clock on this relationship (and how special it is). Chalamet goes full throttle, making his Elio impetuous, reckless, protective...every emotion feels like it's being felt through-and-through even if it's not entirely understood. Wonderfully, sometimes prickly chemistry with Armie Hammer helps a lot, but Chalamet takes this film to another level with his best work. He hasn't been as good since, but honestly-how many actors top work like this even if they get fifty years of career?
Our final nomination is for Daniel Day-Lewis, who in Phantom Thread gives us a potential sendoff to a storied career. Day-Lewis is always marvelous, even if you just observe him from a technical aspect (no actor does the kind of character legwork the extreme method actor puts into his creations). His Reynolds Woodcock is an angry man, clearly starved as much for perfection (which he's able to make with his creations) as he is for something to disrupt his world...a challenge the actor can't entirely overcome. The movie takes some weird detours with Alma, and I wouldn't say even DDL can pull off some of the twists late in the game, but that's a ridiculously high bar to ask an actor to achieve, and overall the performance here is a grand testament to a great performer.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony. Drama went with Oldman (who, like Janney & Rockwell before him swept the precursors), besting Chalamet, Day-Lewis, Washington, and Tom Hanks (The Post) while Comedy/Musical went to James Franco (The Disaster Artist) against Kaluuya, Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes), Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver), and Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman). SAG went with Oldman atop Chalamet, Franco, Kaluuya, & Washington while BAFTA favored Oldman against Day-Lewis, Kaluuya, Chalamet, & Jamie Bell (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool). In terms of sixth place, it was Franco, who had a late-breaking scandal that derailed his nomination, and as it would turn out, his entire career.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: I try not to use an actor's personal life in picking who should win or be nominated for these awards, so I definitely would've found room for Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. Like Chalamet, he has never been as good before-or-since, but he finds a strange amount of sadness in his Oliver, a man who will never experience the world he's briefly being given insight into during a summer in Italy.
Oscar’s Choice: Some will frame this in years since as a closer race between Chalamet & Oldman, but the latter was so far in front that it's probable he won a majority rather than a plurality.
My Choice: Chalamet, hands down. My favorite performance of 2017, possibly my favorite performance of the 2010's. Just superb work. Behind him I'll go Oldman, Day-Lewis, Washington, & Kaluuya.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Do you want to stick with Timmy & I, or do you think Oscar got it right with Winston Churchill? I'm the only person who has actually seen Roman J. Israel, as it feels like more a poster than a movie at this point? And who would Franco have ejected if his scandal hadn't broken (I know most would say Washington, but I kind of think it was Kaluuya in fifth)? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
Also in 2017: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017
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