Third place:
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water [107 points / 16 votes]
Second place:
Alden Ehrenreich, Hail, Caesar! [120 points / 20 votes]
And the Muriel goes to...
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight [201 points / 30 votes]
“It’s a testament to the power of Mahershala Ali’s performance in Moonlight that in spite of the fact that he only appears in the first act of the film his presence reverberates throughout the two that follow. A surrogate father figure to Chiron, the young man who comes of age over the course of those three acts, Juan continues to define Chiron’s life—what he does, how he fashions himself, even perhaps who he is attracted to—long after he is gone.
“So too does Ali’s performance haunt us as viewers. When I first saw Moonlight, one of the many moments that I kept thinking about for days afterward was a conversation around a dinner table (it turns out to be Ali’s final scene in the film) in which Chiron puts a series of hard questions to Juan, all of which Juan answers with the quiet strength that defines him as a character. Ali brings so much charisma to Juan—a mixture of gravitas, warmth, and sly humor—that we fall under his spell right along with Chiron. But Ali also registers the torment and shame beneath Juan’s tough persona. In a film that is so much about perceptions of masculinity, sexuality, and race, Ali serves as the figure who first troubles those perceptions, playing Juan with a hardness that is offset by a profound sensitivity. His performance is so magnetic that it’s a shame there isn’t more of it in the film. Then again, its fleeting nature is part of its beauty, like that of a wave breaking on the sand.” ~ Ian Scott Todd
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