Ranking the Oscar Nominees: Best Actor

Washington; Oldman
Kaluuya
Chalamet; Day-Lewis

And the nominees were:

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

With his first Oscar nomination, Chalamet has become the third-youngest Oscar nominee in the Best Actor category since Jackie Cooper and Mickey Rooney in the 1930s. Throughout awards season, despite getting nominated and even occasionally winning across the board, the nomination for the Academy Awards still seemed in question due to his youth and relative inexperience, and the fact he was acting opposite a veteran character actor, Michael Stuhlbarg, who was expected to steal some of the awards buzz, and Armie Hammer who is actually top-billed over Chalamet (though he's most certainly supporting).

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

His sixth nomination for his first film in 5 years, and apparently his 'final' performance. And it's Daniel Day-Lewis. What else is there to say? This nomination was in the bag as soon as the project was announced, but what about the performance itself? I'll get to that in a bit - though I will say that out of these nominees, funnily enough, he probably has the lowest probability of winning, given that the relatively young Kaluuya and Chalamet have a lot of goodwill behind their campaigns, Oldman is seriously overdue, and Washington missed out last year for a career-best performance, while DDL already has three of them for Christy Brown, Abe Lincoln and the oilman.

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Kaluuya's performance is particularly noteworthy, not just because at the age of 28 he's a relatively young nominee like Chalamet, but also he's starring in a horror film which while not unheard of in the acting categories, is certainly a rarity. Kaluuya's won his fair share of awards this season, but mostly of the critics awards sort. Despite being nominated at the Globes, BAFTA, SAG and many other important precursors, there was always a chance he'd miss out in favour of either a bigger name star or a more 'awards-friendly' role, since Chris Washington is essentially the straight man in a film filmed with other more overt, showy performances.

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

 

In case you were wondering, this is Gary Oldman's second - yes, only his second - Oscar nomination. Ridiculous, isn't it? Oh yeah, and he's winning. For sure - he's won the Globes (with his very first nomination EVER), SAG, and is almost 100% going to win BAFTA. It's easily the most typically Oscar-baity role of the lot - big transformative portrayal of a historical figure - and as to whether that's a good thing or not...will get onto that in a bit.

Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq. 

The 'surprise' nominee of the lot, though with the precursors he had with the Golden Globe and SAG he's not THAT surprising, and given the recent James Franco controversies this was the most likely way things were going to pan out. This is Washington's impressive eighth nomination, and sixth in the Lead Actor category. Maintaining such a consistent slew of nominations over a 30 year period is no mean feat, and Washington should be applauded for that alone.

Ranking the nominees: 

5. Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour

The film may be a bit problematic in just how over-the-top it is in its patriotism and on-the-nose 'crowd-pleasing biopic' qualities, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it, and Oldman is the most essential reason why. This might not be the most 'accurate' portrayal of Churchill ever - Lithgow on The Crown and Gleeson in Into the Storm are probably closer to the real deal - but heck, it's easily the most entertaining, bombastic portrayal of him, some might take issue, I didn't. His tics and mannerisms, his voice and accent, his gestures, they might not be pitch-perfect Churchill but I found them consisntely entertaining and engaging. His big speeches, at the Commons, or barking right in Stephen Dillane's face, are all brilliantly performed, they are perhaps the very definition of 'Oscar-bait' but they are uniformlystrong moments from a performance perspective. I particularly liked how Oldman didn't go full volume or over the top in every moment, showing some of Churchill's cunning and wit at using his voice, shouting only when necessary and tactfully pulling back when the situation requires, and showing far more of the cunning side of the man than a lesser actor would have allowed. He handles the comic bits fine - a few feel a bit like uninspired 'har de har wacky eccentric Churchill' moments.  My particular favourites being his little affectionate asides to his wife Clementine (Kirsten Scott Thomas) as he lovingly mocks the both of them for their age, the scenes where he playfully toys around (respectfully) with Ben Mendelsohn's King George. Even the more awkward comic moments like his reaction to having done the 'V-sign' in a vulgar fashion, or his faux French, are handled well. He struggles with some of the schmaltzier bits, like  the entire Underground sequence, but that's more on the film than him. Though the film is very far from perfect, I found it to be a consistently entertaining and engaging experience thanks to Oldman's solid portrayal of the WWII Prime Minister.

4. Denzel Washington as the titular character in Roman J. Israel, Esq. 

Now this is a critically panned film I'll admit I didn't mind much, but there are a great deal of problems with it, notably in the third act where it completely drops the ball with downright terrible pacing and plot structure. Having said that Washington is consistently great in his creation of the offbeat and somewhat endearing central character, a far cry from Lou Bloom in director Dan Gilroy's last film Nightcrawler in terms of writing, but less so in terms of the quality of performance. I always appreciate when a character on the autistic spectrum is portrayed in a convincing and respectful and Washington certainly does that here, as he never uses it as a crutch for doing eccentricities for eccentricities' sake. Many of the best moments in this performance are the silent ones where he shows just how out of depth this astute, intelligent but tragically un-street smart man with good intentions, who takes one bad turn after another into a hole he can't dig himself out of.

Washington, despite the somewhat overly brisk nature of the film, has some standout scenes, like his hapless negotiation of a plea bargain for his client and his silent, powerful reaction to when it causes tragedy, his darkly hilarious failure at a pep talk, his largely silent descent into amorality and growing paranoia, the rather tense scene where he comes face-to-face with a manifestation of his misdeeds, and the scenes where he really shows the struggle to do the right thing. Even after the hour mark or so when the film begins to lose steam and focus, he's good at playing the sudden change in his character's mentality while still cohering it as part of the same character, and has some rather impressive moments in showing the growing ego and self-serving nature of Roman J. Israel clashing with his morals and principles. It's a performance in a flawed film but the performance itself never is, and Washington, while never quite reaching his Fences heights, gives a consistently stellar, against-type performance, and I certainly wouldn't mind a few more performances in lieu of this atypical one.

3. Timothée Chalamet as Elio Perlman in Call Me By Your Name

Chalamet plays young Elio Perlman who spends his summers lounging around in Italy with his family and blossoming into his first romance. Call Me By Your Name is one of those interesting cases of a film where there's not one particular element that stood out to me as particularly great or outstanding, but on the whole I just liked the film a great deal. It's visually compelling though not to the extent of some of the best of 2017, it's well written and decently directed, its moving but not extraordinarily powerful, it's quite beautiful but never quite stunning. The part of the film which comes closest to greatness is Chalamet's performance, and I should say that though my relative lack of love in contrast to the throngs of fans (and there are many of them) may seem like I'm indifferent to the film, it really isn't.

I rather dug his portrayal of a pretentious youth who's at first slightly indifferent, then quite enamoured by the charismatic Oliver (a solid Armie Hammer), his physical acting which depicts this burgeoning attraction and confusion within him quite well, and all the other little relationships with his family and on-and-off girlfriend are well handled too. The film often takes a certian emotional distance from the character, and within these constraints he does manage to depict his emotional journey very convincingly. It's a quiet, subdued performance that really grows on you throughout, conveying every step of his arc rather well, and has one brilliant scene at the very end where he silently, powerfully shows the complete devastation of young Elio by his first (hopefully not last) love against the brilliant song 'Visions of Gideon', which certainly amplifies the power of the moment too. An excellent performance and I'm interested to see what else he has on his plate in the future.

2. Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington in Get Out

The perfect leading performance to the best horror film of this decade so far. Granted, I absolutely love Get Out, and thus my thoughts on this performance may be a lot more enthusiastic than some, but I've found this to be such an interesting performance to examine even though on the surface, it may seem simple and easy as just your typical horror movie. The least showy performance of this set of nominees, Kaluuya to start things off is just a very engaging everyman, at the outset, who just loves his girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) and is slightly concerned about being introduced to her family (but don't worry, they would have voted for Obama for a third time). Kaluuya portrays the growing unease as the family's excessive pandering to him, from the liberal father to the deadbeat martial arts-obsessed son, on account of his race, though not wholly troublesome yet, begins to make him feel even more out of place than he already was. He's quite the endearing straight man to the awkward dark humour of these scenes as he internalizes this discomfort within an exterior of polite amiability to his hosts.

As the film gradually builds up into a horror movie, Kaluuya is fascinating in just how brilliantly he navigates through all the different roles Chris finds himself in. As the befuddled guest subject to scrutiny by the good ol' rich white folks in the area with some rather peculiar interests in him, his body and his fashionable 'black'-ness, he strikes the perfect balance between being caught off guard, irritation, and yet comforting himself and his incredulous best friend over the phone that everything's okay, they're just not used to black people. His interactions with the other African American individuals on the estate are particularly great too, as he brings so much in his 'wtf' reactions to their strange behaviours and mannerisms, and I have particular affection for his hilarious 'this bitch is crazy' after interacting with Georgina (the brilliant Betty Gabriel). As things escalate though, the darker side to Chris is revealed as we learn about his tragic past through a hynopsis scene with his girlfriend's mother, which is undeniably the highlight of Kaluuya's performance as the painful memories of the past are teased slowly out of him, and he gradually sinks mentally and physically into a catatonic state of the 'sunken place' which is downright amazing physical acting, some of the best I've seen in a long time. After that point as the twists and turns of the film are revealed, Kaluuya delivers in every moment as the sole source of sanity in the crazy, demented situation he finds himself in. I particuarly love his crushing reaction to realizing that he will have to live out the rest of his 'life' in the 'sunken place', and the way he shows how the horror of the situation wears him down to the point of almost no return. Kaluuya's performance is a brilliant performance in what is a somewhat unshowy role, one which encounters so many hurdels which he navigates perfectly, and gives a tremendous portrayal of the reactionary figure to the madness of the film and its heartbreaking emotional core.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread 

As much as I enjoyed Chalamet and Washington, and loved Oldman and especially Kaluuya, my predictable first choice has to go to the supposed 'final performance' of the acting titan to best all acting titans. It would be awesome if Day-Lewis could garner his fourth win here, no chance of that, but still a man can dream. I'm still a bit in a daze about the film, it's an unquestionable masterpiece, remarkable for a Paul Thomas Anderson film since they usually need a while to settle down for me. This one requires some time to properly examine as well. What I will say is that it is not a Daniel Day-Lewis performance in the way you might expect. This may well be the least appealing character he's ever played at the outset, Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York had a code of morality and honour and Daniel Plainview did have some regrets about his past, even the dickhead from Gandhi shut his trap quite easily, yes these characters are probably 'worse' people than Reynolds Woodcock, but Reynolds Woodcock is potentially the biggest arsehole he's ever played, and I mean that in the best possible way. An artist of high pretensions, with a set of obnoxious rules and guidelines in his household to help him cultivate his artistic ballast. You may very well think you know where the film is going with this performance, well let me tell you, if you haven't seen it, don't try and second guess anything, just allow yourself to be swept in by the film.

On one hand this individual is kind of like a less nice Newland Archer from The Age of Innocence, refined and restrained with even a similar sort of timbre to his voice, albeit with an accent that resembles something like RP mixed with Transylvanian tongue, but there's moments where he breaks this mould and starts cussing out at fucking Margaret, the fucking doctor, fucking 'chic' which may have elicited the most unexpected laugh all year. He is a fashion designer through and through, every body movement of his as he interacts with his new lover Alma (a terrific Vicky Krieps) as he ruminates over her lack of breasts and promises he shall make them so as if he's Patrick Stewart on Extras, only he's very serious, oh so serious, Woodcock does not joke around and if you question his taste, prepare to feel his unassuming wrath. In the scenes where Reynolds loses his patience it's remarkable as he shows in such a quiet yet troubling fashion how this 'brilliant' man reacts to even a slight questioning of what he's doing is right, carrying on this unease to when his fashion shows are taking place and people make even the slightest little error as if it is a direct attack on his life and his life's work. Even when enthusiastic fans come up to him wishing to be buried in the dress or when an ailing woman falls asleep in her dress, this 'admiration' of his art in such vulgar forms causes him much distress which he conveys in such a peculiar, brilliant fashion.

I'm not going to talk too much about his relationships with the two women in his life, Alma and Cyril (extraordinary Lesley Manville) who's 'always right', but is she really? Or is he just abiding with her in a passive aggressive fashion to keep the memory of their mother happy? As the film moves between him arguing with Alma, seducing Alma, examining Alma from a professional perspective, examining her from a personal perspective, what exactly goes through his mind? Reynolds is deliberately cold and distant, yet somehow also deeply weak and childlike. Just watching him silently go about his work you can immediately tell what he thinks of the clientele of his dresses. He makes chewing on his omelette one of the most pivotal moments of change and exploration in his performance, which is rather extraordinary. I don't think I'm quite ready to write about this performance yet, I'll be re-watching it next week, and I think I'll need s full article on the film to discuss the central trio's performances in detail. It is an equal parts hilarious and haunting in his depiction of an utterly self-absorbed but not at all shallow artist, that's even more fascinating if you examine it alongside Day-Lewis' onscreen persona, and off-screen enigma.