A Case of Mistaken Identity: Best Male Performances of 2010

To tell you the truth, of all the best of the year segments that I've written, the next two were probably the most difficult. It's much harder to sit down and compare specific performances than it is to compare films, or even aspects of films. Each actor has their own style, and I completely appreciate that. There were some actors who did fantastic jobs this year, but they weren't the best. Geoffrey Rush gave a fantastic and hilarious performance as Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, and his chemistry with Colin Firth gave such a great dynamic for the duo to work off of. Also just barely edged off the list is Jeremy Renner, who chose to follow up his performance in The Hurt Locker with an unnerving turn as the loose cannon of the group in The Town, Jem.

There's also the fact that some films aren't really acting showcases, so you have to do a bit of digging in order to find the best of the group. Inception was one of those films, and even though I really liked the work Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt did, Tom Hardy was the guy who won over me. His character of Eames is practically the man most important to making the act of Inception work, and that sarcastic charm of his doesn't hurt either. Even though it was a team effort, giving Watanabe, Gordon-Levitt, and Murphy all a chance to shine, it's worth noting that Tom Hardy is the man Christopher Nolan's carrying on into The Dark Knight Rises, where I hope he will do even better work.

Another film that isn't known for the acting within it is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and main attraction, once again, is not the main character. It's his counter-inspirational gay roommate Wallace played by Kieran Culkin. Wallace is the gay guy homophobic heterosexuals are afraid of and every gay guy wishes they could be. It sounds like a really controversial sort of character when you put it that way, but it's played for laughs, and Wallace is the perfect combination of Peter Parker and Barney Stinson. Amongst the quieter performances is Matt Damon as Texas Ranger La Beouf in True Grit. It's hard to describe how brilliant his performance is, because he doesn't really do anything radical with it. He does a perfect job portraying both the qualities and imperfections of his character, and what we think of La Beouf is subject to that inflection.

Next up is what I call the Shutter Island duo, because they both were featured in better films this year, but their performances in Martin Scorcese's psychological thriller were still a major impact. Mark Ruffalo really came into his own this year, playing easily likable sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right. He's far from being a man who's ready to take care of a family, and he doesn't get that he can't just enter into the lives of the children one day and become their father. We feel that he deserves more than the open ended fate that he is given at the end, but that's what would realistically happen. As for Leonardo DiCaprio, the better of the two films he appeared in this year was Inception, but his greater performance was undoubtedly in Shutter Island. He had so much abstract psychological and emotional material to work with that if the film was released as originally intended last year, he'd have received a nomination easily. As it is, the window of opportunity for him has passed.

Moving on into the performances that really shook me to my core, Jesse Eisenberg eclipsed Micheal Cera in terms of dramatic talent this year with his performance in The Social Network. Nobody ever calls him "the other Michael Cera" anymore, because he has proven himself a quality actor and an up and coming star. His depiction of Mark Zuckerberg, inaccurate though it may be, is far deeper than the expression displayed in his voice. We see both nothing and everything on his emotionally dead face. It's a tragic performance in a human way, with a cost that is really devastating. Another multifaceted performance this year came the form of Vincent Cassel in Black Swan. Thomas, the intensely sexual ballet instructor of the film, is equal parts revolting pervert and inspired visionary. You can look at him as being a cruel and sensual prick, or a man who uses those tools in order to elicit a fantastic performance and succeeds. Either way, you're riveted by what comes out in his scenes.

The last truly supporting performance on this list is from John Hawkes, who plays the anti-protagonistic Uncle Teardrop in Winter's Bone. The first scene or two paints him in as negative a light as the other characters, but he's got a really soft core to him behind that gruff and vicious exterior. It definitely shows in the latter half full of emotional confessions between him and Ree. He's still a threatening sort of person, but he means well all the same. What came close to a supporting performance was Jeff Bridges in True Grit, another wilderness drama set in the cold of winter. People are instantly going to be comparing his interpretation to John Wayne's original depiction of Rooster Cogburn, but I haven't seen the original performance, so I only see the brilliance of his work. I'd be rooting for him all the way to the Oscar for this performance if he hadn't already won last year. Still, he peels away the drunken fat-man persona with a few touching anecdotes between him and Mattie Ross as soon as their trek is underway. It never reaches the level of false fatherly sentiment, and of that I am glad. He's still a gruff exterior that we see when we envision him.

The best performance of this year just barely comes from Colin Firth in this year's The King's Speech, in which he plays the stammeringly disabled Duke of York, otherwise known as Bertie. The most obvious element of the performance is the crippling stammer the character has to deal with, and it would be difficult for any actor to bleed emotion through that sort of limitation. Firth manages to get us to emotionally empathize with this shy man who wishes he had the liberation of having a family life. The problem for me to fully give myself in to this work is that I think Firth should've won the Academy Award for his performance in A Single Man last year. If Firth had won the Oscar last year and Bridges won the Oscar for this year, it probably would have been more than fitting. Nonetheless, it's better for Firth to win for a well deserving performance than one that's undeserving altogether.

10. Tom Hardy (Inception)
9. Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
8. Matt Damon (True Grit)
7. Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island/The Kids Are All Right)
6. Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island/Inception)
5. Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
4. Vincent Cassel (Black Swan)
3. John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
2. Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
1. Colin Firth (The King's Speech)