Why Har­ris Dick­in­son deserves the Best Actor Oscar

In a new series, we’re cel­e­brat­ing the films we loved that aren’t like­ly to dom­i­nate the awards race. Over the new few weeks, our writ­ers make pas­sion­ate argu­ments for the per­for­mances and craft that stood out to them, from block­busters to art­house and every­thing in between.

So this is awk­ward: stump­ing for a lit­er­al Best Pic­ture nom­i­nee in the midst of an alter­na­tive Oscars fea­ture feels a bit of a copout, a narc move, like bring­ing a Tory MP to a polit­i­cal protest. In my defense, back when LWLies approached me to sug­gest a lov­able awards-sea­son under­dog, Ruben Östlund’s rau­cous One Per­cent satire Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness didn’t exact­ly seem a slam-dunk for Oscar recog­ni­tion. The Acad­e­my can be sniffy about com­e­dy at the best of times, and the prece­dent for Euro-art films with exten­sive vom­it­ing orgies land­ing in Hollywood’s most pres­ti­gious der­by is approx­i­mate­ly nil. Yet here it is, with three major Oscar nom­i­na­tions includ­ing Best Pic­ture and Best Direc­tor, and here I am telling you it was under-rewarded. 

But here’s the thing: it was. Grat­i­fy­ing as it is to see Östlund invit­ed to the par­ty, the expert actors who car­ry the film’s blend of balls-out com­e­dy and more anguished social com­men­tary should be there with him. At least Dol­ly de Leon, the hith­er­to lit­tle-known Fil­ipino the­atre actress who wicked­ly emerges in the film’s sec­ond half as its com­mand­ing cap­tain, got Gold­en Globe and BAF­TA nods and a smat­ter­ing of crit­ics’ awards, even if she couldn’t crack the Academy’s final five for Best Sup­port­ing Actress. But where was the love any­where for her unlike­ly onscreen bitch, our own Har­ris Dick­in­son? He should be up for Best Actor: indulge me as I explain why.

Carl, the infu­ri­at­ing­ly per­fect-look­ing him­bo that Dick­in­son plays in Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness, is not most people’s idea of a great lead char­ac­ter. A cat­walk mod­el whose career is appar­ent­ly on the slide — for the gate­keep­ers of fash­ion see blem­ish­es on his 25-year-old vis­age that mere mor­tals like us can­not — he’s a vain, self­ish, chron­i­cal­ly inse­cure lit­tle man in the gild­ed body of an Ado­nis. He con­jures con­flict from thin air, whether turn­ing a minor restau­rant-bill dis­pute with his equal­ly vapid mod­el girl­friend Yaya (the late, and won­der­ful, Charl­bi Dean) into a full-blown couple’s fight, or get­ting a cruise employ­ee fired for a pass­ing smile at his woman. He’s both a Chad and a Karen, an alpha and a beta and a Z‑lister: many actors might read the role on the page and won­der what on earth they stand to gain from play­ing such an incon­se­quen­tial dick.

And yet, as played with sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion and dead­pan wit by Dick­in­son, we kind of love him any­way: his Carl is pathet­ic in ways many men may all too reluc­tant­ly recog­nise, a very small, scared human beneath all the bronz­er and blue-steel pos­ing. In his very first scene, as he struts through an audi­tion for mod­el­ling agents who regard him as if he were live­stock at mar­ket, we some­how slow­ly his eyes dying even as his face main­tains its rigid pos­ture — scowl­ing or ric­tus-smil­ing on cue — and the real­i­sa­tion that he’s being eval­u­at­ed rather than admired sets in. From the jump, Dick­in­son car­ries him­self like a man bluff­ing through the deep-down knowl­edge that his moment has passed. 

Small won­der that he sticks so dogged­ly to his cor­ner when argu­ing with Yaya, his voice tens­ing and tight­en­ing and going a notch high­er from the strain. Carl makes a liv­ing not stand­ing his ground: Dick­in­son brings an odd kind of integri­ty to the few, pet­ti­ly moti­vat­ed moments he choos­es to assert him­self and his prin­ci­ples. Even that defi­ance col­laps­es, how­ev­er, in the film’s table-flip­ping final act, as Carl’s beau­ty and sex­u­al prowess are exploit­ed by a very dif­fer­ent mis­tress from the mod­el­ling world: de Leon’s calm­ly venge­ful cab­in clean­er Abi­gail. He’s meat once more, which Dick­in­son crafti­ly plays as a kind of lib­er­a­tion from the relent­less craft­ing and main­te­nance of image he’s had to do all along. He accepts his emas­cu­la­tion with a shrug; the sly glo­ry of Dickinson’s work is that we sus­pect he might just like it.

All that and he’s repeat­ed­ly, honk­ing­ly fun­ny, able to yield a bel­ly laugh with one quizzi­cal knit of his immac­u­late­ly shaped eye­brows. It’s no fresh obser­va­tion that com­ic per­for­mances get less than their due when awards sea­son rolls around; when they do, as with Col­in Far­rell in The Ban­shees of Inish­erin, it’s often because they locate a kind of grav­i­tas in a punch­line-prone char­ac­ter. Dick­in­son doesn’t dig­ni­fy Carl too much: there’s nev­er a sug­ges­tion that he’s a man of depth, just lay­er upon lay­er of superficialities. 

In the six years since he wowed crit­ics with his preter­nat­u­ral­ly assured, unflinch­ing debut as a clos­et­ed teenage Brook­lynite in Beach Rats, Dick­in­son has estab­lished him­self as one of our most excit­ing young actors, acing such con­trast­ing assign­ments as a dark­ly cor­rup­tive drug push­er in Coun­ty Lines, a cock­sure bro cameo in Xavier Dolan’s Matthias & Maxime and an absurd­ly cut-glass Richard Atten­bor­ough in the two farce See How the Run — he even sur­vived last year’s Where the Craw­dads Sing with his cool intact. But it’s Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness that most com­plete­ly bridges his char­ac­ter-actor dar­ing and humil­i­ty with his glis­ten­ing movie-star pres­ence: Oscar recog­ni­tion is com­ing his way even­tu­al­ly, I’m sure. But they already owe him.