Abstew continues his weekly look at acting contenders as their films open...
Oscar Isaac as "Abel Morales" in A Most Violent Year
Best Actor
Born: Óscar Isaac Hernández was born in Guatamala, but the internet can't agree on the actual date. It's either January 5th, 1980 or March 9, 1979
The Role: The setting is New York City, the year is 1981 - on record as a time of one of the highest crime rates in the city's history. The third feature film from Oscar nominated writer and director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost) stars Oscar Isaac as Abel Morales, the head of a lucrative heating oil company that has found itself the target of theft and violence. His trucks are being hijacked, the oil being siphoned, the series of events inhibiting his plans to expand his company with a profitable purchase of a new building with a prime location. His method of handling the problem also puts him at odds with his wife Anna (Best Supporting Actress contender Jessica Chastain), who is the daughter of a Brooklyn mobster and has her own ideas of how things should be taken care of...
Trivia, Critical response and Oscar chances after the jump...
The part of Abel had originally been slated to star Oscar winner Javier Bardem, who dropped out of the project after a difference of opinion regarding the direction the script was going. It was Jessica Chastain that actually suggested Isaac to Chandor to take on the part of the upright Abel. The two had been classmates together at the prestigious Juilliard and had been wanting to work together.
Previous Brushes With Oscar: Isaac was a Best Actor contender last year as well in another New York City period piece, playing a folk singer in the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis. Despite scoring a Golden Globe nomination, an Independent Spirit Award nomination, and several notices from critics' groups, Isaac did not make Oscar's final five. But the film received two nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Sounding Mixing. Issac also appeared in a pair of 2011 releases that scored single nominations: Drive for Best Sound Editing and W.E. which was nominated in the Best Costume Design category.
What Critics Are Saying:
Isaac is marvelous to watch here, playing a character who could give Llewyn Davis a crash course in how to win friends and influence people. We first see Abel going for a vigorous morning jog, and that’s fitting because, for Abel, to take a single step backward in life is a fate worse than death. And Isaac pours that stubborn resolve into every inch of the performance, from his slightly formal, affected speech patterns to his rigid, ramrod-straight posture; he’s like a Horatio Alger hero on steroids.
-Scott Foundas Variety
Isaac is in nearly every scene and speaks like Michael Corleone at his most hyper-controlled and with a Frankie Avalon bouffant. You’d hardly recognize him from the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis—or any other movie. He transforms...But Isaac’s Abel is largely impervious, insulated — a little dull.
-David Edelstein New York
As he did in “Llewyn Davis,” Isaac gives life to a character who could play too passively in the hands of another actor...As portrayed by Isaac, however, Abel’s relative nobility is never boring, and the actor ever so delicately unravels the character’s many layers.
-Alonso Duralde TheWrap
As the animating spirit of this rather chilly movie, Isaac is superb; given how openly the whole movie wants us to think about '70s New York crime films while we're watching it, it's no real shock that he's channeling vintage Al Pacino, in everything from the barking way of speaking to the heavily-lidded eyes and downcast mouth. There are no poor performances in the movie (though the dissonance between Brooks's voice and his unfamiliar look is certainly distracting), but nobody is able to pull focus from him: this is very much a one-man show, and Isaac's performance as that man is wonderful: worn down and sullen, but also coiled up with frustration and anger; presenting a clever man just far enough from sophistication that we can see all the clicks and whirs as he thinks his way through new problems.
-Tim Brayton Antagony and Ecstasy
My Take: There's a certain structure to gangster films that we've come to expect over the years, with the innocent finding that he is easily corrupted and falling into a world of questionable morals and violence. While A Most Violent Year may have the look and feel of those earlier films, it is something else entirely and Oscar Isaac's Abel Morales at the center of its journey, is not so easily led astray.
[SPOILERS] Abel, who is living the definition of the American dream, came from an immigrant family, married the boss' daughter, and through hard work and dedication rose through the ranks to become the success he had always dreamed of, without compromising his values along the way. When the events of the film begin to test him, Abel remains a pillar of integrity. Appalled at the thought of retaliating (he refuses to arm his drivers with guns and is disgusted that his own wife would purchase one as protection), with quite authority, he calmly seeks what is right, his motives and intentions never in question. While Isaac brings a simmering intensity to Abel, able to make the virtuous business man compelling, there is no real journey for him to play. His Abel remains the same as when we first encounter him and after a while whatever inherent drama was there begins to fade as you realize that he will never falter. [/SPOILERS]
Isaac does his best to carry the film on his camel-coated shoulders, but the ethical integrity of Abel weighs him down as he starts to feel like a prig, his superiority making you secretly wish for his corruption.
Fun Fact: Despite his conservative appearance in this film, Isaac used to be the lead singer and guitarist for a Miami-based punk band called Blinking Underdogs. They performed on the Van's Wrapped Tour and even opened for Green Day. And Isaac didn't just play a folk singer in Inside Llewyn Davis, he's actually part of an indie music duo with Bruce Ferguson called NightLab.
Probability of a Nomination: Slight Possibility. Despite strong work last year and this year, it seems that Isaac might once again be the odd man out. He won Best Actor from the National Board of Review (which really liked the film in general - also awarding it Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Jessica Chastain) and scored a nomination at the Gotham Awards, but that might be where the awards traction ends. The late release of the film hasn't done any favors for his slow-burn performance (flashier Chastain has been hogging most of the awards recognition) and it just might be too difficult to break through in a crowded Best Actor category this year. As Nathaniel recently noted in his interview with Isaac, there's a couple of big-budget blockbusters up next for the actor (oh, just a little film about a war among the Stars, a Star Wars, if you will) that will certainly boost his visibility. It might even perhaps help the next time he gives an Oscar-caliber performance.
A Most Violent Year is now playing in NY and LA and opens Nationwide Jan 30.