Top Performances of 2012

As the traditional complement to last week’s Top 10 Films, here are the Top Performances of 2012. The Golden Globes categories obviously inspired the absurdist split into drama and comedy of Best Supporting Actor. The refusal to isolate single winners is deliberate; regard the highlighted names as the top of the class, and the runners up being right behind them, and the also placed just behind them. They’re all superb performances.

Best Supporting Actor (Drama)

John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene) His cult leader is as scary and charismatic as his Teardrop in Winter’s Bone, you believe this man could hold Martha in his thrall even as initial love-bombing degenerates into sexual abuse and criminal adventures.

Viggo Mortensen (A Dangerous Method, On the Road) His droll Freud is charismatic and delivers great put-downs but is deeply ambiguous; did he deliberately corrupt Jung? As genteel junky William Burroughs he was unexpectedly warm and sane.

Runners Up:

Matthew McConaughey (Killer Joe, Magic Mike) Wonderfully sleazy as Cabaret’s MC (sic), he erased his rom-coms with a revelatory Joe; icily calm, thawed by love, and psychotic.

Michael Fassbender (Prometheus, Haywire) His very precise turn as the dishonest android enlivened Prometheus, while his Haywire killer was very dashing.

Also Placed:

Sam Neill (The Hunter) Neill’s gravitas and underplayed emotional torment gave a weight to his dialogue scenes with Dafoe that underpinned Dafoe in the wilderness.

Trystan Gravelle (Stella Days) His teacher inspired Martin Sheen’s priest to defiance, but he also played the attraction to his landlady with great subtlety.

Best Supporting Actor (Comedy)

Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) Miller, as flamboyant senior Patrick, displays startling range in portraying charismatic rebel after his troubled loner in We Need to Talk About Kevin. His turn is an exuberant joy that tramples clichés of gay characters in high-school movies.

Bradley Whitford (The Cabin in the Woods) Whitford as a military-industrial office drone organised absurd office gambling pools, snarled obscenities at video monitors, indulged in an unbelievably funny speakerphone prank, and rampaged hilariously thru great dialogue.

Runners Up:

Adam Brody (Damsels in Distress) His musings on decadence’s decline would get this nod, but Brody also makes his character a good soul given to self-aggrandising deception.

Liev Schreiber (Goon) He makes us care for his lousy hockey player who dutifully serves his team, and establishes a convincing bond with his challenger Scott.

James Ransone (Sinister) His Deputy, embarrassingly eager to assist the hero’s research and so get a book acknowledgment, single-handedly lightens a tense film.

Richard Ayoade (The Watch) His deadpan delivery of utter nonsense and total logic is hysterical, as he synchs with the filthy absurdity purveyed by Hill and Rogen.

Also Placed:

Alec Baldwin (To Rome with Love) Baldwin’s reality-bending interfering commentary on Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page’s burgeoning romance is Annie Hall-esque.

Edward Norton (Moonrise Kingdom) The Greatest Actor of His Generation (TM) is actually wonderful here as the kindly earnest scoutmaster unable to control his troops.

Best Supporting Actress

Sarah Paulson (Martha Marcy May Marlene) She excellently layered Lucy’s relief at getting her missing sister Martha back, with guilt at perhaps having driven her away originally, and a mingled desperation and despair over the prospects of healing her psychic scars.

Sophie Nelisse (Monsieur Lazhar) As Alice, the traumatised but kind girl who most appreciates what M. Lazhar is trying to do for the class, this Quebecois Dakota Fanning gives a stunningly mature performance based on unspoken grief.

Shaleine Woodley (The Descendants) She displayed considerable spark as the troubled 17 year old banished to boarding school, who’s surprisingly effective at buttressing her father’s parenting of her younger sister even as she tells him home truths.

Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises) Hathaway essayed a great languorous voice, a wonderful slinky physicality, and a good chemistry with Batman, as well equal viciousness with quips and kicks, but her delightful presence was sorely underused.

Runners Up:

Helene Florent (Cafe de Flore) Her abandoned wife sinking into depression at the loss of her life-long partner gives the film its emotional weight.

Ellen Page (To Rome with Love) Page’s madly attractive actress gets a huge build-up from Greta Gerwig and lives up to it with gloriously shallow sophistication.

Megalyn Echikunwoke (Damsels in Distress) Echikunwoke madly milks her recurring line about ‘playboy operators’ and has an amazing character moment.

Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) Banks is very funny delivering callous lines as talent scout Effie.

Also Placed:

Roisin Barron (Stitches) Barron’s verbally abrasive and physically abusive mean girl reminded me of Keira Knightley’s early swagger.

Kristin Scott Thomas (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) Her terrifying Press Secretary; reshuffling the P.M.’s Cabinet for him, verbally abusing her own children; stole the film.

Mae Whitman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) Whitman is hilariously narcissistic and garrulous as she dominates her unfortunate boyfriend.

Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus) A 75 year old assaults Jimmy Nesbitt and you feel concerned for him – Redgrave oft conjures up that ferocity as Fiennes’ mother.

Best Actress

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Liberal Arts) Olsen’s debut as cult member Martha was startlingly assured – naive victim and spiteful malefactor – and her thoughtful and witty Zibby was a comedic turn of great charm and depth.

Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook) Imperious as Katniss: a great action heroine who combined a will of steel with being a surrogate mother. Her depressed Tiffany was quicksilver magic, flirty to angry in mere seconds.

Runners Up:

Keira Knightley (A Dangerous Method, Anna Karenina) Knightley excelled at Anna’s early empathy, but she was startlingly alien as the hysteric Sabina who recovers to a nuanced fragility.

Emma Watson (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) Watson is luminous as the sardonic senior who makes it her project to transform an isolated freshman into a fellow Rocky Horror  performer.

Also Placed:

Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider-Man) Stone’s witty and very determined Gwen Stacy makes you realise how poorly used Dallas Bryce Howard was and how flat out poor Kirsten Dunst was.

Deborah Mailman (The Sapphires) Gail, the sister with an inflated opinion of herself and a sharp mouth, is a meaty part with a lot of zinging put-downs.

Lola Creton (Goodbye First Love) Creton’s arc from teenage suicidal despair to apparent and actual contentment was utterly convincing, especially in her unease around her lost love.

Best Actor

Michael Fassbender (Shame) His remarkably raw performance made us sympathise with a sex-addict scared of being rumbled at work, but that panicked despair on his face had a flipside, the predatory smile when picking up women. Balancing both was sublime.

Runners Up:

Woody Harrelson (Rampart) This tour-de-force made us care for a repellent character. Yes, he was a jerk and a dirty cop, but desired to do the right thing as he saw it.

Willem Dafoe (The Hunter) Dafoe’s physical presence as he stalked the Tasmanian bush was equalled by his emotional integration into the family he lodged with.

Mohamed Said Fellag (Monsiuer Lazhar) Fellag’s strict but loving teacher knows how to help the class recover from trauma and, driven by his loss, defies orders not to.

Also Placed:

Chris O’Dowd (The Sapphires) His drunken Irish soul man lifts the movie to comic heights it wouldn’t have hit, especially in his fractious relationship with Gail.

Muhammet Uzuner (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) Dr Cemal was a creation of immense humanity, his Stoic voiceover while the camera observed waving grass at night mesmerising.

Taner Birsel (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) Prosecutor Nusret was splendidly subtle, a man of equal empathy and diplomacy who slowly crumbles when deconstructed by Dr Cemal.

Honourable Mention:

Ralph Fiennes (Coriolanus) Fiennes was fierce as a man of exceptional courage and nobility who will not humble himself for ‘appearances’.

Christoph Waltz (Carnage) His compulsive starting of fires, followed by excusing himself to shout “Hello, Walter!” into his phone, was joyous.

Who the Hell is … Kevin Durand?

In this, the first of a series of occasional features, I’m going to celebrate a character actor who I always cheer when I see hove into view.

Kevin Durand is a Canadian stand-up comedian turned actor who has been consistently thwarted by his own physique. Durand first came to my attention as Joshua in season 2 of James Cameron’s Dark Angel. Joshua was the original genetic experiment by the shadowy genetic scientist Sandeman who founded military program Manticore to create super-soldiers after putting a bit too much canine DNA in the mix for Joshua. Buried under layers of prosthetics and make-up Durand gave a fine performance as the hulking dog-faced man, mixing humour with tragic nobility, that helped raised the show’s game considerably after its misfiring first run. After this turn though Durand’s great height, 6’6″, started to get in the way of his natural comedic talents. In a world of leading ladies like Kristen Bell (5’1″), Hayden Panettiere (5’1″), and Ellen Page (5’1″), you can see how it might be just a bit of a problem in getting leading man roles in romantic comedies…

He floated through half of America’s TV shows in one-shot guest roles, notably as a terrifying psychopath in a very chilling episode of The Dead Zone, before a far bigger role in season 4 of LOST as the psychopathic leader of the mercenaries dispatched to the island to kidnap Ben, and then returned as a slightly more rounded version of the same villain in the frankly ridiculous parallel universe used as filler for season 6 of LOST. This of course led to a higher profile and an appearance in Wolverine followed, as the Blob. Sadly no one either noticed or could win the argument over relative star billings that Durand rather than the miscast Liev Schreiber was the natural choice to play Wolverine’s half-brother Sabretooth. His role as the Blob though was perhaps the best use anyone had made of his uniquely endearing mix of comedic timing and imposing physique since Dark Angel. It was certainly more rounded than his thugs in 3:10 to Yuma, Smokin’ Aces, The Butterfly Effect, or his vengeful archangel in Supernatural knock-off Legion. Thankfully, and probably courtesy of his Yuma gang-leader Russell Crowe, he’s essaying a rare good guy role in Robin Hood next month, he is of course playing Little John…

Can Durand overcome his own physique and escape from the pigeonhole of one-note psychos or insanely script-specific good guy parts? Here’s hoping that Robin Hood marks the beginning of more varied and high-profile roles for the man who should be the next Donald Sutherland, sharing as they do an ungainly height, a goofy grin, and a flair for playing villainy, comedy and pathos equally well. Oh, and did I mention he’s Canadian too?

Wolverine

After the fiasco that was X-3 it’s nice to report that Wolverine is a relatively inoffensive addition to the X-Men franchise, although well below the standard of X-Men never mind X-2.

The film opens brilliantly with a startling credits sequence in which Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber) fight in the American army from the Civil War right up to Vietnam, taking full advantage of their healing abilities and animalistic claws and strength. However as Victor becomes psychotic Logan becomes disillusioned with their military mutant unit led by Major William Stryker (Danny Huston). Retreating to the wilds of Canada the film begins a heroic use of cliché above and beyond the call of duty as Logan becomes a lumberjack and settles down with his girlfriend Kayla. This will never do, we need to get our reluctant hero into the second act for action set-pieces, so insert the relevant names and events into this universally applicable Hollywood scene:

‘The Man’ arrives and urges ‘Our Hero’ to come back and do ‘That Thing’.

“No, I’ll never do ‘That Thing’. I’ve built ‘A New Life’ for myself here”

“This isn’t you, ‘Hero’, ‘That Thing’ is the real you. Forget our quarrel and think about the ‘Others in Peril’”.

“It’s your fault they’re in peril, ‘You fix it’”.

Exit ‘The Man’.

Then ‘Something Awful Happens’ and ‘Our Hero’ realises it was because he was being ‘Selfish’ so he joins ‘The Man’ to do…‘That Thing’.

It’s surprising that Gavin Hood, director of acclaimed South African drama Tsotsi, sacrifices depth for such clichés. There are times when this film resembles a bad episode of Smallville, especially a bizarre sequence that begins when Wolverine streaks in front of a truck driven by what appears to be Jonathan and Martha Kent. We’re introduced to a rake of characters who are killed off almost at random, but we don’t care about their deaths because the unwieldy cast is so badly under-used. Only Danny Huston, who delivers another charismatic turn as Stryker, manages to make an impression. Liev Schreiber is mis-cast as Victor, relying on a trench-coat to create menace when co-star Kevin Durand is the one with the appropriately intimidating physique, while Gambit’s long awaited appearance is tragically underwritten.

Wolverine has a number of amusing moments and clever references to the comics, and, of the two plot twists, the second is actually quite clever, but it’s too little too late and in any case is ruined by the ever audible creaking of the plot mechanics. Above all the film suffers from prequelitis. We know the characters that survive into the X-Men films which removes any tension from scenes involving them in peril. One lengthy and allegedly tense sequence already appeared in X-2 and as Logan and Victor are equally matched and can’t die anyway their various clashes are pointless. Unveiling Deadpool with minutes to go smacks of desperation (and is even more of a waste than Venom in Spider-Man 3) and his horrific appearance is dwarfed by a cameo which is either CGI enhanced make-up or total CGI but terrifyingly it’s hard to tell which…

Hugh Jackman whoops it up as Wolverine but truthfully comics great Mark Millar has written more interesting Wolverine stories than this in his sleep. A missed opportunity.

2.5/5