Margot Robbie isn't the only actor with more than one performance in buzzy productions. 2019 has been a year full of actors with sterling bodies of work. There's also Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Adam Driver, among many others. I'd like to shed light on the excellence of a star whose work is quite far from Oscar's presumed radar. I'm talking about a former heart-throb turned character actor who spent the year getting drunk with Willem Dafoe, facing the challenges of single-parenthood in outer space and casting aspersions at Timothée Chalamet's disproportionate genitalia.
That's right, we're here to sing the praises of the one and only Robert Pattinson. First, we have his adventures with a fuckbox, a mad scientist and a baby…
HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis)
The true star of High Life is, without a doubt, its director, her reinvention of the space odyssey and the exploration of loneliness at the cosmic level. That said, Denis' reveries need to be anchored by some humanity or they'd drift away like corpses floating in the void. While his castmates choose to become primordial forces of unhinged hunger or lust, Robert Pattinson remains stubbornly recognizable as a real person facing unimaginable tasks. In this lamentation for the lonely and untethered, Pattinson's chemistry with his onscreen daughter is of particular wonder, cutting through the more alienating aspects of this experiment with needed warmth, while never crossing into maudlin sentimentality.
THE KING (David Michôd)
I confess myself disappointed with David Michod's interpretation of the Shakesperean mythos of noble kings and portentous History. There's a lot dirt and blood, there's sweat and anachronistic costumes, and self-seriousness abounds. Thankfully, in the middle of the grim tale, there are some specks of light. Robert Pattinson's indolent dauphin is one of them, exploding into the scene with a preposterous French accent and the kind of outward arrogance one never expects to find outside a cartoon. It's overacting but it's also exactly what the film needs. He's a storm of loud contradictions fighting the surrounding mediocrity instead of being swallowed by it. Pattinson is usually a generous co-star, but here he wisely steals the spotlight and never surrenders it.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (Robert Eggers)
Robert Eggers's black-and-white nightmare is a pas-de-deux between a force of nature and the man ravaged by its madness. In such a dance of fetid fluids and drunken masturbation, each dancer is as important as their partner. Despite this, Willem Dafoe has been getting all the awards buzz which is just unjust. There's a precious balance at play and the deterioration of Pattinson's haunted lighthouse keeper is as crucial to the film as the flatulent spectacle of his older colleague. It's a performance inherently reactive and physically grotesque, awe-inspiring in its dauntless ugliness. If The Lighthouse is Persona's cum stained evil twin, Dafoe is Liv Ullmann and Robert Pattinson is Bibi Andersson recounting past crimes and leaving the realm of sanity altogether. He's the Prometheus to Dafoe's angry divinity. He's Oscar-worthy, that's what he is.
Are you a fan of Robert Pattinson's work in this tryptic of cinematic oddities? Do you think he should be in contention for the Oscars?