by Seán McGovern
There is a particular kind joy that we film lovers get to experience once a year or so, and that is seeing an actor who we have enjoyed and admired for years finally receiving the widespread praise and admiration we have always felt for them. Here at the Film Experience that's usually actresses: Isabelle Huppert in Elle, Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird as recent examples. But every once in a while there is a man and a performance that makes you excited to pay attention to Best Supporting Actor.
Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a performance so involving and entertaining that to know he is on the cusp of an Oscar nomination fills me with almost the same excitement he is currently experiencing; In a recent interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, he found out during the recording that he had been SAG-nominated, exclaiming that he was "levitating" at the news...
Clockwise from top left: Gosford Park (2000), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Spice World (1997)
In Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Grant plays Jack Hock, friend and accomplice to Melissa McCarthy's Lee Israel. Beginning first as drinking buddies lumped together by loneliness, their tentative friendship blossoms. Lee is the perfect balance of bitterness to Jack's cavalier charm. While Jack Hock was a real person, little was known about him beyond Israel's descriptions in her book. He was from Portland, Oregon and died in his 40s in 1994. Grant, British and in his 60s is already very different from what this man would have been like, and through his characterisation he creates a fully realized person who we the audience eventually feel like we know. The screen lights up every time Grant appears, but really, he does that in every single film he's in: be it prestige films like the Age of Innocence or Gosford Park, cult classics like Withnail and I, complete dross like Hudson Hawk, or a cinematic masterpiece like Spiceworld: The Movie.
The mere mention of these films gives a glimpse at the sheer breadth of his filmography. There is a sense that Grant is going through a kind of renaissance in his career thanks to CYEFM? when in actuality he has continued to work since his career on screen began, both in film and particularly television recently: Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones and Girls. The only validity to conversations about a resurgence in his career is that Marielle Heller's direction and Nicole Holefcener and Jeff Whitt's sparkling screenplay have allowed Grant to get a character as rich and screen time as large as he so justly deserves. His performance opposite Melissa McCarthy needs to be treasured, and not only because it is a rare example of queer friendship on screen, where the sexuality of the two characters is central yet so effortlessly incidental to the story.
And here's where I make a confession: I kind of always thought Richard E. Grant was gay. I never felt any reason to have this confirmed or denied. Grant plays roles and characters in a way that he recently described at an event at BAFTA as "cynical, effete, entitled, arrogant, long-faced parts" which don't possess "an Emma Thompson-like warmth and affection" which to me feel like a very particular and historical form of British homosexuality. And here's another confession: the first role I ever saw Richard E. Grant in where I fully took notice of who he was and just how great he can be was in a cameo in Absolutely Fabulous, in a dream sequence, playing Edina Monsoon's idealised form of her ex-husband. Grant is more than capable of being hammy, but CYEFM? distills all of his devilish silliness into a role full of heart and humour.
There may be a narrative created over the coming months in which Sam Elliott's role in A Star is Born and his hopefully inevitable Oscar nomination are deemed something of a career award. But while Elliott stands out in a film full of stand-outs, I am fully championing Richard E. Grant who has entertained people over here on my side of the pond for decades. And while an Oscar nomination is an award in itself, Mark Rylance's win for Bridge of Spies (and Christoph Waltz inexplicable second Oscar!) proves that some plots do take a twist. With that in mind, dear Oscars voters, for your consideration: Richard E. Grant.