Ali Wong, “Beef”
How do you choose between Ali Wong and Steven Yeun for the best performance in “Beef?” Arguably, one wouldn’t be possible without the other, as both actors are asked to play off each other time after time. However, if you put a gun to our heads, Wong is the choice here based on the sheer fact that she turns in a career-best performance in the Netflix limited series. Yeun has proven to be a premier actor with incredible range, but Wong is a primarily comedic actor who many know from her stand-up career. But in “Beef,” she’s able to deliver the comedy and wackiness, especially at the beginning of the series, but as the show delves deeper into the psyche of each of the leads, we start to see the layers Wong brings to her character. Past the moments where she’s playing a character who is unhinged and vowing revenge on a stranger, by the end of the finale, we’ve seen Wong turn her ambitious, cutthroat character into someone terribly flawed, broken, and ultimately, lost. We can’t wait to see what she does next. – CB
Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
Ira Sachs‘ “Passages” is a bright, brisk, and dangerous look at modern love. But mostly, it’s a portrait of a man behaving badly. And Franz Rogowski lends Tomas such charisma, vulnerability, and sheer sexual allure in “Passages” one could almost forgive the catastrophe he leaves in his wake. Almost. Set in modern-day Paris, Rogowski’s Tomas, a gay German filmmaker, completes his latest project, seduces young teacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) at the wrap party, and puts further strain on his already tense marriage with Ben Whisaw‘s Martin. Full of life and himself, society’s rules don’t apply to Tomas. But as Sachs notes in interviews and Q&As, Tomas isn’t a sociopath. Far from it. Instead, he’s arguably one of those creatures susceptible to the waves of attraction, impulse, and desire that churn and crash through us all. And Rogowski’s performance swells with that infectious, risky, and guiltless energy. Tomas is libido incarnate: ecstatic when consummated, tortured when blocked, but undeniably potent at all times. In the film’s brilliant final moments, Sachs lets Tomas’s tormented, gleeful freedom take over the movie as he roams the City Of Lights on his bike. Is he mourning his mistakes, out on the prowl for his next lover, or simply finding inspiration for his next film? One can’t be sure. But Sachs is letting viewers know somehow that we all have a little Tomas in us. Giving him space to roam is better than suppressing him entirely. And with his keen fox-like gaze and wiry body, Rogowski makes Tomas this year’s most irrepressible onscreen character. Engage with him at your own risk.– Ned Booth
Glen Howerton, “Blackberry”
It’s the performance Glen Howerton fans knew he had in him. The actor plays unnerving for laughs on “It’s Always Funny In Philadelphia,” but he’s a whole other level of creepy as Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie in “BlackBerry.” Balsillie’s inherent slime makes him hard to stomach, but viewers can’t take their eyes off Howerton whenever he’s onscreen in Matt Johnson‘s film. As a corporate shark recruited by gullible minnows to bring them under his fin and save their company, Howerton prowls about North American business offices like an apex predator. He’s ready to go in for the kill at a moment’s notice, whether that’s negotiating with Jay Baruchel‘s Mark Lazaridis to become CEO of RIM. Or his brash pitch of a prototype to Bell Atlantic that Lazaridis saves at the last moment. Or his offers to poach Google engineers with illegal backdated stock options to help patch up the network issues Balsillie created. Sensing a pattern here? That’s because Balsillie’s shark in a suit is exactly what he appears to be. He may be as ruthless as a Great White, but his loyalty lies only with his outsized ambition and greed. Schadenfreude runs like blood in the veins of those types, sneering as others fail. But isn’t it so satisfying to watch the NHL stiff-arm Balsillie out of purchasing the Penguins as his fortune and facade crumble back at Waterloo? Howerton’s meme-able retort to not getting his way transforms “BlackBerry” from a solid film to a dark horse pick for yearly top 10 lists. Balsillie may personify business culture at its worst, but this is Howerton at his best. Give him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod already. – NB
Elina Löwensohn, “She Is Conann”
In “She Is Conann,” Bertrand Mandico‘s gender-swapped, glitter-speckled retelling of “Conan The Barbarian,” the titular she-barb enters the afterlife and looks upon her past lives in all their glorious cruelty. But while this may be Conann’s story, Elina Löwensohn‘s dog-faced demigod Rainer is the one who tells it. It’s a role tailor-made by Mandico for his favorite actress: an androgynous oracle named after R.W. Fassbinder who dons a biker jacket straight out of Kenneth Anger‘s “Scorpio Rising,” and armed with a camera that captures Conann’s every betrayal. And the betrayals in “Conann” are myriad. As Conann evolves over six lifetimes, she also degrades into something monstrous. Initially, a young Conann perverts only her thirst for revenge. But she doesn’t stop there, defiling her desires, her convictions, and even Art itself to quench that most evil of appetites: power. And Conann betrays Rainer, too, the pair entwined in an intense bond where each is the other’s muse. At first, Rainer sniffs around the seemingly helpless young woman, forecasting her fate with corrupt and cryptic suggestions. But Conann continually defies her daimon and creates a more depraved destiny than Rainer could imagine. Just because Rainer’s heart may be black (and immortal) doesn’t mean it can’t be ravaged, and Löwensohn wonderfully captures Rainer’s pain underneath their prosthetic snout as they roam the underworld, heartbroken. As Conann’s ultimate victim, Löwensohn plays Rainer as a jilted muse, lover, and friend, forced to tell the story of an impossible love based on someone else’s indiscretions. Forget the riddle of steel; here’s the riddle of glitter. “She Is Conann” knows what’s best in life: to live it as the myth and adventure it is, in all its agonizing and exquisite ecstasies. And Löwensohn’s performance makes Rainer recounting Conann’s story as much a lament as a barbaric yawp: an affirmation of a life howled into the dark, with tortured splendor. Has tragedy ever hurt this good or been this sumptuous? -NB
Thomas Schubert, “Afire”
We’ve all met Leon’s type from Christian Petzold‘s “Afire“: the aloof, condescending grouch who thinks they’re better than everyone else. Too bad for them that everyone else knows better. But it takes a special actor to make such a pill endearing before they even learn how to open themselves up. And that’s what Thomas Schubert lends to Leon in Petzold’s latest. It’s easy to snicker as Petzold cuts Leon down to size throughout “Afire,” framing him isolated from Paula Beer‘s Nadja and other characters as he “works” on his second novel and keeps up the conceited air of a successful artist. But it’s more moving still to watch his self-absorption dissipate, albeit from tragic and unpredictable events, and see Leon transform as a man and writer. As obnoxious as he is, Schubert suffuses Leon’s self-pity with a soft, even childlike innocence. Like when he reads a book at the beach on a towel, fully clothed: self-aware of his doughy body but unaware of what a shit he’s being to Felix (Langston Uibel) and Devid (Enno Trebs). Or when Nadja and Leon’s publisher Helmut (Matthias Brandt) each try to get through to him about how crappy the manuscript of his second novel is. How do you get through to someone like Leon, much less get them out of their shell? Simple: have life put a crack or two in it. Leon emerging from his chrysalis in the final moments of “Afire” as a kinder, better man is one of 2023 cinemas’s best final shots. Schubert says so much in just one look: someone finally ready to come out of hiding and embrace the world that’s been waiting for him. -NB