Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actor

The Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars is your guide to the Academy Awards. We will cover each of the categories in depth, talk about history and what the award truly means, and predict some winners. Check back all month as we make our way to the big show, one category (each as important as the next) at a time.

Best Actor

The nominees are:

Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog

Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM!

Will Smith for King Richard

Denzel Washingtong for The Tragedy of Macbeth

I got burned last year predicting against the stats in this category. I thought the sentiment for the recently deceased Chadwick Boseman, coupled with his undeniably great performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, would override the fact that Anthony Hopkins won the BAFTA for The Father. I was wrong, and I will not make that mistake again

It is a little easier this year, considering one actor has won the BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild award, the Critics’ Choice award, and a somewhat meaningless Golden Globe. That actor …

Will Smith for King Richard – Sometimes, a pairing of actor and role just seems designed to win an Oscar. The buzz begins from minute one, long before any footage has even been shot. It does not always lead to an Academy Award win, but when it does, it becomes so inevitable it feels as though it were written in the stars. This is a long way of saying Smith has not been shy about his desire to win an Oscar, and taking on the role of Richard Williams has given him the perfect opportunity to do so.

Of course, none of this works if the performance is bad, so Smith throws himself fully into the role of the famed tennis instructor. He’s got the voice down. He’s got the walk. He’s got the attitude. Smith is showy in all the right ways, evoking the larger-than-life figure while still making the character his own. Smith’s take on Richard is difficult and a little deranged but devoted to his daughters and determined to make them the best they can possibly be. In other words, he’s playing a pretty good dad, which is a core Smith zeroes in on to carry the audience through the story.

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog – What a fascinating and enviable career Cumberbatch has built for himself. Just in the last 10 years, he has appeared in Star Trek: Into Darkness, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as the voice of the dragon in two The Hobbit movies. But, he has balanced out the blockbusters with prestige work like 12 Years a Slave, The Imitation Game, 1917, and this film. He seems equally at home in either context and never repeats the same performance twice. There is always something new to discover with a Cumberbatch character.

Such is the case with Phil Burbank, a rancher whose self-denial and repression have curdled into anger and vindictiveness. There is no place in the world for him to be his true self, so he lashes out at the world and everyone in it, with Cumberbatch deploying a quiet menace that chills to the bone. Yet, within this villain, there is the soul of a poet, of the person he could have been if the world were more accepting, the side of himself he has suppressed. Cumberbatch nails this half of the character with equal finesse and skill, crafting one of the great movie characters of recent memory.

Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM! – Garfield is one of my favorite actors working today. It has been fascinating to see him navigate the aftermath of starring in a pair of big-budget Spider-Man movies that kept him away from smaller, more interesting work for the better part of five years. He immediately followed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with 99 Homes, Hacksaw Ridge, and Silence, three wildly different films in which Garfield is allowed to explore the full range of his abilities. This year, he returned to Spider-Man, but he has also given us this outstanding achievement.

I intend to wrap up 2021 with a later-than-usual Year in Review next week, once we are past the Oscars, but one bit of information I feel comfortable divulging: I think this is the best performance of the year. As Rent creator Jonathan Larson, Garfield embodies the spirit of every striving artist who is one phone call away from changing his life forever. He sings, he dances, and he brings us into the world of a Broadway wannabe with tons of talent but no luck. The movie does not work if Garfield does not get it right, but he soars and so does the movie.

Denzel Washington for The Tragedy of Macbeth – Would it surprise you to learn Washington is the most nominated leading actor of the past 10 years? It’s true. At an age when many actors start taking character roles or supporting parts or just start working less altogether, Washington has bolstered one of the finest resumés in cinema history with a decade of unmatched excellence. The New York Times recently named him the best performer of the 21st century, and it seems impossible to find fault with that determination.

You have never seen a take on the character of Macbeth like this. Much has been made of Joel Coen’s decision to cast older actors to play Lord and Lady Macbeth, but that has less to do with the success of the film than Washington’s decision to underplay every line where a lesser actor – or even a great actor with a more traditional take on the material – would shout to the back rows. Washington imbues each Shakespearean soliloquy with the weariness and nonchalance of a man at the end of his rope but who believes he always has another card up his sleeve. 

Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos – I love Bardem. I think he is excellent. He deserves many more leading roles in which he is not cast as a villain but rather a romantic lead or sympathetic hero. He can do just about anything. Just about anything, except play a famously light on his feet Cuban musician and comedian. He does what he can in the part, but his casting here was a mistake.

Though talented and versatile, Bardem carries with him the weight of life and experience. He has seen things. These are great qualities for a performer, but they do not exactly scream out: 36-year-old song-and-dance man. Worse still is that the story does not give Desi Arnaz much to do, which means Bardem is held back by the script, as well as his own casting. But, anyway, good for Bardem earning his fourth acting nomination from the Academy.

The final analysis

For a while, it looked as if the momentum behind The Power of the Dog might carry Benedict Cumberbatch to a victory here, but that momentum has cooled, effectively killing his chances. Likewise, Andrew Garfield had buzz around his work in Tick, Tick…BOOM!, and the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home only bolstered his profile (interesting to note Cumberbatch also appears in that film but did not get a similar boost). However, missing out on a BAFTA nomination with the voters in Garfield’s adopted U.K. home (his family moved to England when Garfield was 3) put a serious dent in his chances.

No, this is Will Smith’s award to lose, and regardless of the twists and turns of the campaign trail, it always has been. A win for Smith would be a feel-good story, a reward from the industry for being one of the most successful and popular actors of the past three decades. Few actors in Hollywood are savvier than Smith, and with King Richard, he saw his moment and seized it. He has played this perfectly – including delivering a stellar performance – and for his troubles, he will walk away with that little gold statue.

Will win: Will Smith for King Richard

Should win: Andrew Garfield for Tick, Tick…BOOM!

Should have been here: Dev Patel for The Green Knight

Next time: Best Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actor

Eddie Redmayne is the frontrunner for Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Actor

The nominees are:

Bradley Cooper for American Sniper

Michael Keaton for Birdman

Steve Carell for Foxcatcher

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game

Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

Best Actor is easily the most stacked category every year, with a ton of worthy contenders and too few spots to put them in. This year, for instance, you could put together a list of great performances that would make a tremendous list of nominees without including a single one of the actual nominees. As a thought experiment, here is my alternative list: Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler; Timothy Spall for Mr. Turner; Brendan Gleeson for Calvary; David Oyelowo for Selma; and Phillip Seymour Hoffman for A Most Wanted Man.

I could go on like this all day with Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year, John Lithgow in Love Is Strange, Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice, Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood, Aleksey Serebryakov in Leviathan, and on and on and on. The point is that while the five nominated performances are each fantastic in their own right, the Best Actor category at the Oscars is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the best performances of the year. It is not just this year either, as similarly long lists could be made for any year. If you want to talk about Best Actress, it could fall the same way, though the contender field there is often unfairly narrow, and that is a good discussion to have another day.

What we have, then, are the five performances Academy members liked best, and all credit to them, they liked some damn good performances. Maybe most remarkable is that four of the five nominees, including the two frontrunners, are first-time nominees. None of these actors has won an Academy Award before. In fact, this is the only acting category this year not to feature a previous winner. The last time not one of the nominees was a previous winner was in 2006, so no matter who wins, it will be a history-making night for someone.

Michael Keaton for Birdman – No one in the Best Actor category this year had the same task as Keaton. While the other four nominees were all playing real people – meaning they had books, interviews, videos, etc., to base their performances on – Keaton created a whole new person from just the words on the page. Great words though they may be, they mean nothing without Keaton’s incomparable contribution. He is the heart and soul of Birdman, the burning fire at the center of the film. His performance lends poignancy, gravitas, and humanity to an otherwise caustically satirical endeavor.

Keaton is Riggan Thompson, not because of who he is in life but because of who he is as an actor. Keaton is not great as Thompson because he once played Batman and Thompson once played a Batman-like superhero called Birdman. A lot of actors have played superheroes at one time or another, and more now than ever before, but no other actor could have brought the deep wells of pain and anguish that Keaton brings to the part. This is not a case of stunt casting. It is an instance of casting the perfect actor in the role of a lifetime.

Keaton embraces all of the flaws and contradictions of a man who just wants to be seen as an artist but who has a history of selling out that goal. Every time he walks on stage, he takes with him the hurt of a failed marriage, a washed up career, and a lack of respect. Birdman does not tell the story of a man overcoming all these grievances but of a man who finally channels these grievances into the art he so desperately wishes to make. The words of the writers create this world, but it is Keaton who makes them fly off the page.

Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything – In a relatively brief career, Redmayne has been involved in a number of highly prestigious projects, including Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, My Week with Marilyn, and The Good Shepherd, but perhaps none has carried more inherent prestige than this biopic of Stephen Hawking. For The Theory of Everything, Redmayne takes on the unenviable task of portraying a famous and beloved figure who is still very much alive and very much in the public consciousness.

Redmayne handles the project by going above and beyond the call of duty and does not so much play Hawking as become him. He has the look, the walk, and the attitude of a man whose body keeps him trapped but whose mind takes him places the rest of us could not even dream about. Characters with disabilities have always been seen somewhat derisively as Oscar bait, but Redmayne does not attempt to milk Hawking’s motor neuron disease for pathos. Instead, he treats it as a fact of life to be dealt with and overcome so that he may attend to more important matters.

In the film’s best scene – and one of the best scenes of the year – Hawking becomes frustrated that he cannot keep up with the pace of a dinner with friends and excuses himself from the table. He attempts to climb the stairs but collapses. He cannot go up or down. Then, he sees his son standing at the top of the stairs behind a safety gate, but the son does not seem as locked in as Hawking in this moment. He tries to reach out to his child, but he cannot connect with him. Redmayne is able to show us this haunting and tragic moment with his body, but he makes us understand it with the longing and despair on his face.

Bradley Cooper for American Sniper – Cooper is the only previous Oscar nominee in this group, and he has been nominated in three consecutive years – for Best Actor in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook, for Best Supporting Actor last year for American Hustle, and this year. It has been a kind of remarkable career transformation for Cooper, whom many of us first took notice of in The Hangover, though if you are a David Wain fan, you were enjoying Cooper’s comedy chops as far back as Wet Hot American Summer in 2001.

American Sniper was a passion project of Cooper’s, something he has wanted to bring to the screen for years. He chased it through numerous directors and production delays until he and director Clint Eastwood were finally able to bring the story of Chris Kyle to the screen. Cooper’s passion behind the scenes is clearly matched by his dedication on screen, as he transforms himself into a U.S. Navy SEAL.

Cooper has charisma to burn, but here, he channels that energy into a man who has a deep love for his country and an abiding need to defend it but for whom the horror of war gradually begins to take its toll. Cooper looks appropriately warrior-like in his action scenes, but when you watch him at home, that is where the real work appears. Cooper absolutely embodies a man who leaves a piece of his soul on the battlefield every time he goes out and who must fight to keep what he has left when there is no more war to fight.

Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game – Cumberbatch’s Best Actor case is an interesting one. On one level, he is fantastic in the film as mathematics genius and British war hero Alan Turing, but on another, taken out of the context of The Imitation Game, the performance feels like another in a string of recent performances by actors using the same set of tricks to portray a character who is clearly on the autism spectrum. Cumberbatch, himself, does a riff on the autistic genius who does not get along so well with people on his television show Sherlock. It is a trope that has become commonplace in modern storytelling, so how to judge Cumberbatch’s work here?

Objectively, it is an undeniably solid performance. Given a character who has difficulty showing emotion and who lives so much inside his own head, Cumberbatch communicates a world of feeling and soul simply with his body language and facial expressions. Really, Cumberbatch is marvelous as Turing. The problem is that Turing is not a well written character in the film. Because the character shows little depth, writer Graham Motion does not imbue him with any. Whatever depth we sense in Turing is thanks to Cumberbatch’s excellent portrayal.

Steve Carell for Foxcatcher – Let’s try not to make this about a comedic actor impressing everyone by going dramatic. In the first place, it has been done before with great success, and more than that, Carell already has a demonstrated facility with dramatic acting, even in ostensible comedies such as Little Miss Sunshine and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. So, it would be great if we could all stop acting so surprised Carell was able to pull off such a magnificent portrayal of a mentally disturbed millionaire in Foxcatcher. He is a great actor, and that is what actors do.

John du Pont, as played by Carell, is a man devoid of either heart or soul. His ghostly pallor suggests a body drained of blood. What he subsists on is power, and he wields it like the only weapon he has. He is an impossibly careful man who speaks with a slow, deliberate cadence and does not so much walk as shuffle. Appearances are everything for him, and the worst fate that could befall him is to be perceived as weak or incompetent. Carell embraces the character as only a gifted actor could and pulls the nearly impossible trick of making a wealthy psychopath understandable, if not sympathetic.

The final analysis

It will be Keaton and Redmayne down to the wire, and Redmayne has a slight advantage, having won the Screen Actors Guild award and the British Academy of Film and Television award. Each won a Golden Globe – Keaton in comedy and Redmayne in drama. Early in the season, some thought Redmayne and Cumberbatch might split the British genius vote, paving the way for a Keaton win, but Cumberbatch’s campaign never materialized. Now, some are theorizing that Keaton and Redmayne may split the vote and clear a path for Cooper to win.

I never have really subscribed to the idea that a split vote could lead to a surprise winner. For that to be true, the third candidate would have to have as much support as the two leaders without losing any votes to them. The math just does not seem to work. I would love to see Keaton onstage accepting an Oscar. It would be one of the highlights of my night. However, all signs point to Redmayne winning for his transformative portrayal of Hawking, and it is hard to argue with that.

Will win: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

Should win: Michael Keaton for Birdman

Wish he had been here: Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler

New movie review: The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing in the new biopic The Imitation Game.

Interested is interesting. It is an old line of advice parents give their children on how to make friends. The logic is sound for meeting people, but it is almost incorruptibly true when applied to storytelling. The problem with the new Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game is that it just does not seem very interested in its characters or really even in the story it is telling. As a result, it is only intermittently interesting.

On its surface, there is little to dislike in director Morten Tyldum’s handsomely mounted World War II picture. It is charming, well acted, and suitably dramatic. It has the veneer of prestige, but beneath that, there is precious little substance, which is a shame. Turing’s life is rife with cinematic possibilities, stuffed with intrigue, sorrow, and inspiration. All the makings of a great old Hollywood picture are there, something akin to The Life of Emile Zola, if we want to reach back a ways.

Sadly, few of these possibilities are explored. Late in the film, an authority figure, remarking on the death of a character, says, “He faced it with a stiff upper lip” – that classic indicator of British austerity. One cannot help but feel the filmmakers approached the material in the same way. Tragedy lurks in every corner of the story, but the film remains posh and aloof, somehow floating above it.

To the film’s credit, it never gets bogged down in self-seriousness. First-time feature screenwriter Graham Moore infuses the script with humor and humanity, and what easily could become a history lesson is never less than entertaining. It is a crowd-pleaser of the highest order, but if you have not been to the movies in a while, there is something you should know: Crowd-pleasers are a dime a dozen. If you wish to be pleased – and I am not saying there is anything wrong with that – there are any number of suitable movies from which to choose, including this one. However, if you wish to be challenged, look elsewhere.

Coincidentally, there is another crowd-pleasing British film in theaters right now about a brilliant scientist and his difficult life – The Theory of Everything. One could be forgiven for walking into this feature and realizing, “Darn it! I wanted the one with Stephen Hawking.” The other, more troubling trait both films share is a distinct lack of interest in exploring the world-changing feats these men accomplished.

Throughout The Imitation Game, we are told the machine Turing is working on will win the war if he is successful. He is building the first computer with the goal of cracking the German Enigma machine, an encryption device the Germans used to pass coded messages. If the machine is cracked, it will give the Allies a clear advantage, but despite efforts by the Americans and Russians, no one had been able to solve the puzzle. Enter Turing.

Rather than show the process of his work, though, the film settles for constantly reminding the audience Turing is a genius. We see him scribble furiously, but instead of an exploration of his scribbles, we are treated to numerous exchanges in which the probably autistic Turing does not understand basic human interactions. These are fun to watch but are no substitute for understanding the man and his particular brilliance.

Benedict Cumberbatch, of TV’s Sherlock and thus well versed in playing prickly geniuses, is great as Turing. As an actor, Cumberbatch is capable of explosive bursts of energy and tremendous feats of physicality, but he uses none of that here. In fact, the most physical we ever see him is during his morning jog. Turing is a man whose mind does the heavy lifting, and Cumberbatch portrays this with little more than a shift in his eyes or a twitch in his mouth. It is a brave, emotionally complex portrayal of a difficult and complicated historical figure.

Matthew Goode and Keira Knightly perform admirably in the parts of Turing’s friends and co-conspirators, but neither is given enough to do. While it is always fun to see Charles Dance on screen – you may recognize him as Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones – he has the thankless role of playing “the authority figure who stands in the hero’s way.”

Dance is good, but the character is a microcosm of what is wrong with this movie. The filmmakers seem to believe it is not enough to watch a smart man do important work. He needs obstacles and conflict, as though the war alone will not suffice. Turing faced myriad challenges in his life and overcame a great many of them, but a superior who does not understand his work is probably the least among them.

Strangely structured, to say the least, Turing narrates his war record while we are treated to other flashbacks of his life, as well as a police investigation into Turing’s post-war affairs. The three timelines are juggled to somewhat muted effect. The end goal seems to be to induce guilt for the treatment of war hero Turing, who was persecuted for his homosexuality, a crime in mid-20th century England. The shift to a kind of gay rights narrative is handled deftly and carries appropriate weight, but it comes so late in the story that it does not land with the impact it otherwise might, much like the rest of the proceedings.

I have no doubt of the filmmakers’ good intentions, but the storytelling often feels perfunctory, coasting on the cultural cache of Turing’s accomplishments and World War II. These are impressive figures doing a critical job at one of the most crucial moments in world history. Their story is inherently interesting – if only the film had been a little more interested.

See it? Yes.