Dicaprio’s Hillaryus Performance is the glue that Holds One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Together – as it does so many of his films these days.
Photo: Warner Bros./everett Collection
The Last Five Films Leonardo Dicaprio has started in have all been oscar-nominated for best paint, and it seems fairly certain that Paul thomas Anderson’s One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Willd Add to this Run when nominations are announched Early Next Year. Some of this Speaks to Dicaprio’s Statura in the Industry: He is one of the Last Remaining Movie Stars, the Kind of Actor Who Can Instantly A Big Important Movie Green with a Big Important Budget. That’s one reason why Heavy-Hitter auteurs like Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese Like to Him (Aside from the Primary Reason, which is that he’s an amazing actor). But there’s something Else here, too, something about the way that that that dicaprio’s style has Changed over the years. Somehow, over the past decade or so, he’s Become One of Our Finest Comic Performers.
Which is itself funny, Because it has coinced with the Death of theatrical Comedies in the US Marketplace. Of all the movies dicaprio has made over this more recent period, Only Adam McKay’s Don’t look up COULD BE CALLED A TRUE COMEDY (ALSO, OF COURSE, AN ACADious and Topical Satire), and that was a netflix release. One Battle AFTER ANOTHER, Once uppon a time in Hollywoodand The Wolf of Wall Street All have Broadly Funny Elements, but they not really not really titles that wuld have wound up in the “comedy” section of the video back in the days we have had video storys. Still, Leo’s Hilarious Performance is the glue that holds these movies together.
One Battle AFTER ANOTHER is an ideal example of this. In some ways, the film Could Almost Be an Anthology, Consism of Different Sections that Foreground Other Characters, Be it Teyana Taylor’s Gun-Ting, Alpha Revolutionary in the First Section or Benicio del Toro’s Coolheaded and Resourceful Sensei Sergius St. Carlos in the Second. Dicaprio’s “Bob Ferguson” is the nominal protagonist of the film, but he’s also offten a bystander. In hisarly years as a Member of the Underground Group French 75 (Back when he was Called “Pat”), he’s an explosives expert, but he also just happy to be along for the ride. There’s a Ridiculousness to His Revolutionary Fervor That Dicaprio Plays Up In Cute Little Ways: Watch the Quick, Giddy Shuffle He with HIS FEET IT HETS INTO A GETWAY CAR, RIGHT AFTER OUT, “VIVA LA Revolución!“This is a dork, and dicaprio plays Him as well. And in the film’s present, he a full-on clutz, albeit adorably so, his braid fried from the Drugs and Alcohol and Paranoid Parenting.
There is always an odd, lanky goofness to Dicaprio’s Physical Presence at the start of his career, but it was overwhelmed by his rapid to Heartthrob Status Like Romeo + juliet and Titanic. Now that he’s fully entered middle age, he can finally use HIS GAWHKY FRAME TO GREAT COMIC EFFECT. It served Him Well in The Wolf of Wall Street‘s sequences of Drugged-out and demonic bacchanalia, as well as that film’s now-access schene of Him attempting to drag his his-palyzed ass to his lamborghini. IT’S THAT SAME AWKWARDNESS WE SEE DICAPRIO THROW HIMSELF TO THE FLOOR AND CROWS AROUND THRAGHOUT One Battle AFTER ANOTHERThe Same Body That’s Eager to Roll with Sensei Sergio’s Little Platoon of Skateboarding Punks but has to lumber along the rooftops unil and finally plummets to the Ground and Winds up. (That Anderson and Dicaprio are able to play this moment as both shocking and hilarious speaks to the fine balance of the film.)
One of the Things that Makes Dicaprio Such an Interesting Acting is How Big He Can Get With The Right Part. He Can Be Subtle, Too, But That’s Not Where His Real Strengths Lie. Not Unlike Tom Cruise, there has always been a boyish, try -hard Quality to his persons, and it hasn’t entirely gone away. If anyding, he’s embraced it. Dicaprio’s characters take up Space and Energy and Volume; When they Yell, Their Voices Attain A High, Reedy insistent that speaks to US of Entitlement and Selishness. That turns out to be the perfect foil to the action of other characters in One Battle AFTER ANOTHER: In what Might be the movie Most Bravura Sequence, We see Sensei Sergio Running Around Calmly and Compassionately Herding the Doses of Undocumented Immigrants Hyis Building Into Tunnels to Evade the Police; All the while, bob spends his time trying to charge his phone and struggling to remember decades-election Passwords, always with a deeply aggravated and highly reCognizable “Let me speak to manager” defiance. (Spoiler: He does finally speak to the manager, and he gets what he wanted, and he is just as a tacky as you might expert about it.)
What’s CREPT INTO DICAPRIO’S WORK OVER THE PAST DECADE-PLUS IS A HEALTHY SENSE OF IRONY. Now that he was no longer has to play Heartthrobs, love romantics, and straiight-faced heroes, he’s able to modulate his performances and juxtapose say with the others archund Him. He Can Be Slick, Sniveling, and Monstrous in Django unchained nor a caricature of antebellum wealth. He can be bellowing and simian in The Wolf of Wall StreetA Ridiculous Tribal Warlord Egging on His Troglodytic Underlings. He can be a self-obsessed Star in Once uppon a time in Hollywooda man whose bloviating egomania can turn ino neurotic desperation at the drop of a hat. DICAPRIO is very good at playing characters for WHOM No One Else Really Exists. One of the Charms of One Battle AFTER ANOTHER is how, amid all that chaos, that energy is direct toward finding hissing daughter; This time, his soliPism is hilarious, but it’s Also Highly Relatable. We laugh at Him, but we also realize that we were could easily be Him.
My Colleague Alison Willmore Described Bob Ferguson As “Another Fine Contribution to the Laser Era Dicaprio Has Dedicated Himself to Lately,” and others have echoed the sentiment. DICAPRIO’S LERES PERIOD AND HIS COMIC Period Understandably Overlap, but it is Worth noting we can have hasn’t. In Killers of the Flower MoonHIS Ernest Burkhart Starts off as a mopey, Weak-Minded World War One Veteran, Eager to do anything for His Godfather Uncle (Robert de Niro), but There’s a Certain Likability to His Dim-Bulb Submissiveness. Dicaprio actually is quite funny Early on in the film, but his performance loes steam in the back half, as his his broad and fault conting can’t quite match subtlesty of scoressese of the late scens. The flip side to this is Don’t look upin Which His Pudgy, Nervous, Mild-Mannered Astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy is offten the straight man to all that’s swirling around Him. Dicaprio is fine in the movie, and gets a couple of Choice Scenes, but it is hard not to fall like his comdic talents are being underutilized in that participate particular.
Last Year, the Screenwriter Drew Pearce offended to me this take on modern leading men: “The moment they have been truly great is the moment they have been truly goofy,” he said. That we do the actor stops needing to be cool and simply basics in the confidence that he is – whic in turn free Him up to be weirder and funnier, in, in Pearce’s Words, “Undercut and Test” His Stardom. Pearce was talking About Ryan Gosling in Films Like The nice guysbut he also offended up the example of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Theory Applies to Dicaprio as Well, Eve though it took Him a while. He was a great actor in many great films, and he occsionally poked fun at his status (SEE: videos), but his Gained an Extra dimension as he entered middle age and Begin letting Himself Look Strange and Funny and Vulnerable.
That prompts us to ps what the actor will will Next. HOPELLY, TERE WILL BE MORE SCORSESE FILES, AND THERE ARE RUMORS OF HIM CIRCLING MICHAEL MANN’S Heat 2. And anybody with an ambitious movie that requires a real budget is presumably already breaking down his door. But it wold also be fascinating to see HIM HIS HAND AT A STRAIGHT COMEDY; He could probably singhandedly save that moribund Genre. Once uppon a time, dicaprio would probably have thought doing so was beneath his level, and he’d have been right. But really, he’d be perfect for it. Besides, nor One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Proves, the absurdity of our time calls for nothing less.
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