Why Pete David­son should win the Best Sup­port­ing 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.

I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I do know one thing for cer­tain in this life: Tik­Tok will be the death of us all. I know this through my friends, my fam­i­ly, and all my favourite strangers on the inter­net, and above all else I know this because should-be Oscar nom­i­nee Pete David­son told me so in Bod­ies Bod­ies Bodies.

Hali­na Rejin’s satir­i­cal Gen‑Z slash­er promis­es to show the SNL star’s ​“dark­er side” but also final­ly lets the man con­firm, in plain words, what the inter­net has been whis­per­ing about him for the last five to 10 years: This guy looks like he fucks. To say that, about your­self, with a straight face – as David­son does in Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies – demands a mirac­u­lous dis­play of focus and con­fi­dence. It is Davidson’s crown­ing moment of his career.

Will he be nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar? Of course not. Should he be nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar? It depends what you want from the Oscars. If you are hap­py with the sta­tus quo and the anti­quat­ed def­i­n­i­tions of what is ​“good” in Hol­ly­wood, then no. But if you’ve spent any time on the inter­net in the last decade, fan­cy a laugh, fan­cy a change, or just fan­cy fuck­ing stuff up for peo­ple who don’t know what BDE means, Pete Davidson’s work in Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies is the per­fect place to start.

Much of the come­di­an and actor’s noto­ri­ety in recent years has come from off-screen reports about his love life, includ­ing (but almost def­i­nite­ly not lim­it­ed to) rela­tion­ships with Ari­ana Grande, Kate Beck­in­sale, Mar­garet Qual­ley, and, of course, a post-Kanye West Kim Kar­dashi­an (the pair were togeth­er for the amount of time it takes to grow a child).

This roman­tic prowess is rel­e­vant in the con­text of Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies, as David­son plays David, an über-rich teen host­ing his friends in his par­ents’ Geor­gian manor house in Chap­paqua, New York, over a hur­ri­cane week­end. He is defined by his rela­tion­ships to the girls he’s invit­ed – and one girl’s recent Tin­der match she brought along – for the trip. David berates his girl­friend Emma (Chase Sui Won­ders) when she accus­es him of gaslight­ing her: ​“What’s next, are you going to call me a nar­cis­sist?” he spits, before sar­cas­ti­cal­ly con­grat­u­lat­ing his loved one for hav­ing a Twit­ter account.

His inse­cu­ri­ty as the man of the house is ampli­fied by Greg (Lee Pace), the unin­vit­ed, weird­ly attrac­tive and old­er extra who’s just there for a good time and doesn’t even realise the impact he has on every­one, but most of all on David. As the girls gasp and gig­gle when Greg slices open a bot­tle of expen­sive cham­pagne with David’s dad’s kukri (which David refers to as a ​“Gurkha sword”) a jad­ed David­son refus­es to smile, some­how man­ag­ing a death stare in a half-open mouth, teeth jut­ting in protest, and blood­shot eyes demand­ing his rep­u­ta­tion restored.

How dare Greg infil­trate this sacred space where David is king? Who would pos­si­bly chal­lenge, delib­er­ate­ly or oth­er­wise, the fuck­a­bil­i­ty of this man? In real life, David­son mys­ti­fies the tabloids with his coterie of beau­ti­ful women – and peo­ple of all gen­ders who hun­gri­ly fol­low his exploits like he was lead­ing the way towards a tax-free soci­ety – so to play out a pos­si­ble threat to this tri­umphant against-the-odds sex appeal with as much indig­na­tion and bit­ter­ness as David­son-as-David does? It’s not exact­ly meta, but don’t ignore the itch to dou­ble check on Wikipedia once the cred­its roll.

In every one of his Seri­ous Act­ing roles to date, David­son has slow­ly been shed­ding any pre­tence of char­ac­ter to trust that his innate and tru­ly unbe­liev­able appeal is more pow­er­ful than any­thing on the page. David­son can be seri­ous and impres­sive, as in the close-to-home Judd Apa­tow com­e­dy The King of Stat­en Island, more than slight­ly based on Davidson’s own life and fam­i­ly, but it is so much fun­nier when the lines between actor and char­ac­ter begin to blur even fur­ther, and what remains is Pete David­son in all his mer­cu­r­ial charm.

Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies is built around David­son. Some­how along­side the likes of Shi­va Baby’s Rachel Sen­nott ham­ming up her per­for­mance to excru­ci­at­ing but reward­ing heights, Davidson’s more dead­pan dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the hand he’s been dealt sets up the domi­noes just wait­ing to fall. ​“Hey fuck­face,” he polite­ly inter­rupts as Sophie (Amand­la Sten­berg) and Bee (Maria Bakalo­va) are hook­ing up, instead of feign­ing shock at walk­ing in on two lovers shar­ing an inti­mate moment. ​“I just look like I fuck,” he reminds Sophie while explain­ing why Greg does not, ​“That’s the vibe I like to put out.”

David­son does such a good job of play­ing into this guy’s out­sized ego because it is his own out­sized ego – which is why David’s ulti­mate down­fall and the rea­sons behind it ful­ly cement the actor’s mes­meris­ing skill.

For a large amount of the film’s run­time, David­son some­how finds a way to con­vince the audi­ence that he is a mar­tyr, both the vic­tim and the sav­iour of this cursed week­end get­away these hor­ri­ble girls and guys are enjoy­ing. He deliv­ers the kind of per­for­mance that makes you miss him when he’s not on screen – not because of the max­i­mal­ist ener­gy he brings, but in his scathing line deliv­ery which has got him so far in the world of vari­ety and stand-up com­e­dy. So much of com­e­dy, of course, is about decep­tion – manip­u­lat­ing a person’s emo­tions into believ­ing some form of sin­cer­i­ty to lat­er reveal that the rea­son that you laughed, or cried, or smiled, was a lie. This is exact­ly what David­son does: he’s so fun­ny and so good that he tricks you into think­ing he’s stu­pid as a char­ac­ter, even though the actor knew what he was doing all along.

There is a reveal towards the end of this grat­ing­ly trendy who­dun­nit that negates so much of the seem­ing­ly high stakes that suc­cess­ful­ly com­pel you to keep watch­ing these ter­ri­ble peo­ple. With hind­sight, it makes total sense that stu­pid­i­ty and tragedy walk mer­ri­ly hand in hand in this world, but David­son is so con­vinc­ing as a paper thin­ly-veiled ver­sion of him­self that for just one minute, it did seem pos­si­ble that he was clever, maybe fault­less, maybe some­one to cher­ish and mourn after all.

But we must not for­get: this is Pete David­son. Nobody tru­ly under­stands why he is so suc­cess­ful, so attrac­tive to so many women, so com­pelling in so many dif­fer­ent ways, despite the many dozens of arti­cles out there that espouse his Big Dick Ener­gy. He fucks, he brings a cer­tain vibe, but he is not try­ing to do any­thing else! The man just wants to live! And that is why his per­for­mance in Bod­ies Bod­ies Bod­ies is awards-wor­thy. Hook, line, and sinker, he’s got us again. Even when he los­es so hard, Pete David­son is always winning.