Boy Movies #82

The Guy Pearce issue, feat. Akosua T. Adasi

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In my client's defense, your honor, who cares like omfggggggg who cares???? Like come onnnn

We now live in a world where Jeremy Strong is an Academy Award nominee. What a beautiful thought! I do feel that someone at one of the twenty-five studios that produced his film, The Apprentice, should send me some sort of compensation for the brave campaigning I did in honor of it and him, but then again, you can’t put a price on standing up for a good cause. I went to see The Apprentice in theaters on opening weekend. I brought a group of friends. I told literally anyone who asked, and many who didn’t, that it is “worth watching.” I famously gave it the Boy Movies bump. I did my part, and now I’m seeing the fruits of my labor. Hallelujah.

In complete honesty, I didn’t give a single shit about any of the nominations that were announced after Jeremy’s, but some stray observations:

• “Omggggg I can’t believe Challengers didn’t get any nominations oh my goddddd it was SNUBBED!!!!” So this is the Academy Awards, not the Twitter Awards, hope that helps

• Explain to me in layman's terms what it is about Monica “de-yassified Kylie Jenner” Barbaro’s performance as yassified Joan Baez that is bewitching you all, I’m sincerely asking

• Literal ijbol at Isabella Rossellini getting in there for her ten total minutes of screen time in Conclave. And that’s on being Hollywood’s most important nepo baby of all time!

• Came to the staggering discovery that people think The Substance is legitimately good… I kind of thought we were all just having a laugh together… egg on my face I suppose…

• Good for Sebastian Stan :)

And with that out of the way, it’s time to talk about Guy Pearce.

My ex-wife was the greatest love of my life, but I’ve moved on from her now

That is a quote from 2025 Academy Award nominee Guy Pearce, given to the Guardian in response to the question “What or who is the greatest love of your life?” Alright, man! Akosua T. Adasi, my dear friend and writer of Boy Movies’ sister publication

Consumption Report

, brought this astonishing piece of journalism to my attention earlier this week, mere days before we were scheduled to convene for our planned Pearce-themed discussion, which you’re about to read. “Crazy thing to say when you (Guy Pearce) have a current partner,” she wrote. “WHY WOULD HE SAY THIS,” I wondered. “That’s just one you keep to yourself????” To which she replied, “Deserves the Oscar for this question alone.” Little did we know.

Here’s the thing: Akosua and I got our asses to the hallowed halls of AMC Lincoln Square to see The Brutalist back in December, agreeing that if we didn’t see it in a movie theater we simply would never make time for it. If you haven’t heard, The Brutalist is a 215-minute epic about a Holocaust survivor, played by Adrien Brody, who immigrates to the United States in the hopes of achieving the elusive American dream. As he strives to make it as an architect, he meets a fabulously wealthy lunatic who ruins his life by being a fabulously wealthy lunatic — enter Guy Pearce. The Brutalist is directed by Brady Corbet, who directed Vox Lux, aka the movie that gave us this screenshot:

Needless to say, I don’t respect him, though I thank him for his service to my reaction image folder. But it must be said that Guy Pearce is doing something… interesting in The Brutalist. Yes, that’s exactly how I’d describe it. It’s certainly interesting! If you’ve seen the film, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, I guess I would compare it to the experience of riding public transportation and realizing there’s a guy sitting across from you dressed in an extremely realistic Abraham Lincoln costume. It’s just an uncanny thing you’re never expecting to see, you know? He is so fascinating in The Brutalist, so unlike anyone else in the ensemble, that it prompted Akosua and I to get together for a mini Guy Pearce movie marathon a few weeks back, whereupon we watched 2013’s Breathe In, which only she had seen, and 2000’s Memento, which neither of us had seen. We had so very many thoughts on our friend Guy, 2010s cinema, the films of Christopher Nolan, and more, that I asked her to be the guest on this week’s issue.

Below is mine and Akosua’s conversation, which serendipitously happened in time for us to give day-of reactions to Guy Pearce’s first Oscar nomination. It was so so so stupid fun to talk to her, one of my smartest friends, about such goofy, goofy things.

Akosua
I actually have a question to start! How familiar were you with Guy Pearce’s filmography?

Allison
I can’t believe I came up with a first question and you showed me up… overachiever…

Jk, this is a great first question, and one that inspired me to Google “Guy Pearce filmography” in a panic just now because I could not think of a single movie of his other than Prometheus. It turns out that actually was the first Guy Pearce movie I ever saw, and you can’t even tell it’s him under all those nasty old man prosthetics. (I also hate that movie, but that’s not important right now.) Anyway, it turns out that until we did our Pearceathon I had only seen FOUR films of his! This is not including his random role in the amazing Mare of Easttown, as that is of course a TV show, despite the fact that you can for some reason log it on Letterboxd. Unfortunately the only Guy Pearce films I’d watched were: Prometheus, Iron Man 3, Alien: Covenant, and The Brutalist, which we saw together. Lol! How familiar were you with his filmography? I know you had famously seen Breathe In, which is how this all began.

Akosua
Okay, so you are doing way way way better than me already. Before we saw The Brutalist (arghhhh), I had only seen Breathe In! Isn’t that crazy?? I literally went to check my Letterboxd after our Pearceathon and was SHOCKED by how small my percentage watched was. (I’m also curious, are other people obsessive about this stat as well? I don’t care to have a high percentage for everyone but there are some people — Julianne Moore — who I feel like I NEED to have seen like 80% of their filmography.) Anyway, I’m not sure why Guy Pearce has felt like such a big presence in Hollywood to me over the last decade. I just assumed he was in everything and I was seeing him all the time. But that was just in my head. I will say, now that I’m three movies in, I still think Breathe In is his best performance AHAHAHAAH

Allison
AND WHAT IF I SAY YOU’RE RIGHT??? I do quickly want to amend my earlier statement, because I just checked my Letterboxd stats and apparently I had seen FIVE movies of his pre-Pearceathon. I forgot about The King’s Speech! In my defense, I do not remember him being in that nor do I recognize the movie that stole The Social Network’s Oscars as real.

Akosua
IJBOL! You saying that he was in The King’s Speech makes me think that this is why I thought he was such a huge star or something. Not to get into it but I feel like The King’s Speech was given an insane amount of promo when it came out that it was just like in your mind. It was AN EVENT! Why was Access Hollywood like, breaking down scenes from The King’s Speech? And I still never saw it!

Allison
And you never should. I saw it once in theaters — know thy enemy, etc. — with my mom, who fell asleep and started snoring about halfway through, which perhaps says all there is to be said about it. And Tom Hooper later went on to direct… Cats. So.

Akosua
I’m so sorry, I do have one last thing to say about Guy Pearce and The King’s Speech! It’s actually two things: 1. It’s crazy that the Royal Family got such good press for so long that when The Crown said one little nasty thing about them (which was true so what’s the fuss) they freaked out, and 2. WHY WAS GUY PEARCE NEVER IN THE CROWN? I feel like he could have been a good diplomat or something. Too Australian?

Allison
Wait… you said that and now I feel crazy. WHERE WAS HE??? Also, this feels like a good moment to mention that the initial Diana season of The Crown was the first one I ever watched (it was pretty good) and I was so bothered after seeing Josh O’Connor debase himself as Charles that I immediately put on God’s Own Country after finishing the season finale. Anyway, they should’ve cast Guy Pearce. He has that Crown-ian quality! Let him play a silly diplomat!!!!! Let him play a distant cousin!!!!!

Okay, now for MY first question. Do you think Guy Pearce is a boy actor or a girl actor? I do tend to always ask this when I do actor-focused issues with people, but it feels extra relevant considering the movies we watched for our Pearceathon.

Akosua
Girl actor! Segueing from our chat about his exclusion from The Crown and the fact that he seems like someone who should have been in a million movies and in fact has been in *checks* 91… Okay, maybe I’m just not watching Guy Pearce movies… MY POINT IS he just seems sort of invisible and selective and underappreciated in a way that I think our most prolific boy actors are not. He’s not Jason Statham, you know what I mean? Also? His answers to that Guardian questionnaire? That’s all girl!

Allison
I will link the Guardian questionnaire that you alerted me to, because it is one of the more insane things I’ve read recently and I don’t think anybody is talking about it enough. Or at all? Are we the only ones talking about it? Maybe this supports your theory that he is invisible, selective, and underappreciated. Do men go hard for Guy Pearce? Is he one of their special little guys? He seems to me — and, again, this is coming from someone who has seen a very small percentage of his 91 (!) movies — like one of those reliable actors who will always turn in a Performance. I think The Brutalist is the best recent example of this; he is certainly Performing in that. But, yes, I agree that he’s a girl actor, and I would even dare to say that his selectiveness almost makes him something of a character actor. Or at least someone who wishes he was uglier so he could actually be a character actor. With all my respect in the world to character actors. I adore them.

Akosua
I have not seen a single person talk about that Guardian questionnaire. I only came across it because of my very active Google Chrome discovery page and my susceptibility to be distracted. I hate to tell anyone to click out of a Boy Movies dispatch but I actually do need readers to stop here and go read that questionnaire¹. It’s a quick read and you need to know what we’re dealing with as you read our BIG-BRAINED takes on the enigma that is Guy Pearce.

Moving on… I think the character actor identification makes a lot of sense here. This is someone who wants to disappear into the role — sometimes this is really good and fun, and sometimes it is The Brutalist and you’re thinking, what in the world is going on? I think this is also the perfect place for me to confess… It turns out that I too had actually seen FOUR Guy Pearce movies before I saw The Brutalist. Do you see what I mean? His performances are so easy to forget (not because they’re bad but because character actor!). The reason that I felt the need to confess is that one of those four movies is FACTORY GIRL, the Edie Sedgwick biopic starring Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen (as Bob Dylan!). Guy Pearce plays… ANDY WARHOL! His skin is all waxy and he has a really bad wig and I LOVE IT! I actually think that movie is why I’ve always kind of loved Guy Pearce despite never ever thinking about him until someone brings him up (character actor!).

Allison
Well, this has taken my breath away. Factory Girl is a movie I’ve heard of but have never seen, nor have I ever looked up a single fact about it. Okay???????? So, what you just said about him playing? Andy? Warhol? also reminds me of his role in Prometheus, in which he plays a guy who looks like this. Disgusting freak shit. He does not want us to know he’s hot, which is historically the plight of the wannabe character actor. Ryan Gosling used to suffer from this as well, before he rotted his brain with too much filler. I should also say that Guy reprises his role as Gross Old Man in the (amazing) sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant. Why wouldn’t they just cast a guy who looks like that? There are plenty of guys who look like that. As I said after watching Colin Farrell in The Batman, Richard Kind needs work, too.

I digress. I would like to talk now about Breathe In, a movie I was entirely unaware of until you turned to me during the iconic intermission at The Brutalist and asked if I’d ever seen it. I know what led you there in the beautiful year of 2013, but please tell the readers what brought you to Breathe In way back when, and whether you remember what you thought of Guy Pearce at the time. SIX PLAID SHIRTS!!!

Akosua
I came to Breathe In because I was, like many girls on the internet, a super big fan of Drake Doremus’ previous movie starring Felicity Jones — Like Crazy. I was reblogging screencaps of that movie like it could make Anton Yelchin (RIP) my boyfriend. I am, in some ways, a completionist, so I felt like if I was going to be a real Doremus fan, I had to watch Breathe In. And when I did, I loved it! It was really everything I loved back then (and still do, tbh) even though I can recognize it’s not amazing. But it’s the modern day “talkie” — actors talking really quietly and slowly in a way that’s supposed to reflect how people talk to each other in real life but always seems like people mumbling their way through an improv class. These kinds of movies aren’t completely formless, they have key plot points to move along the action, but their main interest is in depicting conversation. How do people talk over and around one another and call that life? What’s it like when someone attends to your inane complaints and treats them like earth-shattering insights? That’s the beauty of a movie like Breathe In. Everything about it — music, editing, casting, costuming — is done to make it seem deep and unbothered, which means that it’s exactly the opposite of that. It’s so AWARE of itself. That’s why there are six plaid shirts!

Allison
See, this is why I’m so shocked that I hadn’t even heard of it before. I too was a big Like Crazy fan, mostly because of our king Anton, and I am 100% certain that if I had seen Breathe In the year it came out it would have become a core pillar of my personality. Or at least my Tumblr. To quickly outline what this movie is actually about: Guy Pearce plays a man who lives in, I think, Westchester with his wife and daughter. He wishes he’d become a “proper” musician instead of a teacher who also plays in orchestras occasionally — woe is he. The family takes in a British student, played by the absolutely fine Felicity Jones, and naturally she and Guy Pearce form a frankly very weird connection. As we were watching I compared this movie to everything from An Education to Fish Tank to The Diary of a Teenage Girl. I stand by those comparisons, and I would describe all of them similarly to how you aptly described Breathe In. A modern day talkie! It really is so aware of itself, and so of its time. There’s a reason that kind of movie peaked in the 2010s. I think filmmakers began to understand that this very verbose style — where characters speak so softly over each other about “real” issues, but no one is actually listening to what anyone else is saying — doesn’t mimic reality. But also: who cares! That’s why it’s so great to watch.

We bring up six plaid shirts because those seem to be all of the clothes in Guy Pearce’s character’s wardrobe, by the way. You’re just not seeing movies about guys who only own six plaid shirts anymore. Upon reflection, going from Breathe In right into Memento was a wild choice!

Akosua
I think one of the most important things about this movie is that it is about an age-gap romance! Sophie (?), the British exchange student played by Felicity Jones, is a PIANO PRODIGY who attends the HIGH SCHOOL that Guy Pearce’s character teaches at. This is not to be a moralist — if Ben Affleck asked me to be his little girlfriend right now, I wouldn’t think twice — but just to emphasize the ridiculousness of this movie. A man’s wife treats him like he’s a garage band hobbyist rather than a talented and respected cello player, so he decides to enter a romantic entanglement with an eighteen-year-old exchange student who plays piano good. Like BFFR!²

The six plaid shirts… the second most important thing to this man after his cello are the six plaid shirts he stuffs in a garment bag when he decides *SPOILER* that he is going to run away with Sophie. Can you imagine deciding to blow up your entire life and abandon your family and being like, you know what I need? SIX PLAID SHIRTS. That sartorial choice does actually connect Breathe In to Memento quite well though, since Christopher Nolan’s second feature is also about wearing the same absurd outfit every single day.

Allison
Thank you for keeping me honest. The age gap is essential when we talk about Breathe In. I also think your point about the misogyny is pretty essential, too. We made fun of Felicity Jones as Hot Young Not Like Other Girls Girl, and Amy Ryan as Nagging Wife, and Mackenzie Davis (my nemesis…) as Teen Daughter, probably to an excessive degree during our viewing party, but these are not women who exist in our world, and yet they are everywhere in this exact type of film. Saying that sort of makes me inclined to categorize Breathe In as a boy movie? And I actually do think it might be cuspy! Guy Pearce’s character is definitely a boy movie character: an unsatisfied older guy whose boring family life is reinvigorated by the arrival of a Hot Young Not Like Other Girls Girl because, can you believe it, she understands him better than his bitch wife or dumb daughter.

I did prepare a question for you related to Memento, and forgive me for veering slightly off the Pearce of it all for a second, but I am really curious about your answer. You’re a recent Nolan convert, as you touched on in the Boy Movies 2024 extravaganza issue. We’re not here to talk about him, though he is one of the most important figures in the boy movies community, so I’d love to know where Memento ranks in your Nolan hierarchy.

Akosua
WHAT A BRILLIANT QUESTION!! I actually think this is related to the Guy Pearce of it all because I think what makes one Christopher Nolan movie better than the other is the leading man. Again, a light tone of misogyny, but I don’t need to get into Christopher Nolan’s depiction of women here. Anyway, my RANKING: Inception, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento, Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight Rises, Tenet. Memento ranks high on the list because even though it is a classic men-explaining-things-to-me Nolan feature, the fact that the main character is dumb and actually knows nothing because he remembers nothing makes it more bearable. He is as confused as the audience and I think that lets the movie exhibit a sort of restraint that some of Nolan’s other movies don’t have. There is a story here, not just an abstract dance around the concepts of history and time, even though those themes persist.

Allison
The strength of a Christopher Nolan movie ALWAYS relies on its leading man! This is why I would also rank Inception first and Tenet last; the hilariously named Dom Cobb is infinitely more compelling than anything John David Washington does in Tenet. Have we figured out what went wrong with Denzel’s son yet…? A mystery for another issue, maybe.

Akosua
As a new member and (pending board approval) the CEO of the Malcolm Washington fan club, I really think the problem with JDW is that he was a former football player. Not to insist on stereotypes but JDW is the classic quarterback who gets cast as the lead because there are no straight men in the drama club. He'll give a performance but it will be wooden and uncharming.

Allison
YES!!! Yes!!!!!! I can absolutely back this up because, and I am about to make a major reveal here, I watched like, two full seasons of HBO's Ballers, which is a TV show that aired from 2015 to 2019. It was an even broier successor to Entourage, as well as John David Washington’s first major acting role. He starred opposite The Rock, played a football player, and gave such an utterly flat and unmemorable performance that when he later started finding success in movies I was flummoxed. Until I discovered his parentage! Then it all made sense <3

Anyway, Memento is a blast because of how phenomenally stupid the main character is, you’re right. The idea of tattooing vague phrases on my skin in order to help myself remember my life is a concept so foreign to me. That is not something a normal person would ever do. You can see shades of the same themes that would interest Nolan later — it of course reminded me a lot of Inception at several points — but Memento is the rare Nolan film that seems to know it’s a little foolish. I think a lot of the reason for that is Guy Pearce’s performance! The script is bananas, the things he’s being asked to do make no sense, and yet he never seems like he’s winking at the audience. He’s so sincere about it all. It makes for a baffling contrast between him and the other characters, who are constantly reacting to the odd things he says and does like, “Uh? Bro? Are you okay?” He’s not, but he’s not really stressing about it, which is what makes him so fascinating to watch.

Not important, but my Nolan ranking is: Inception, Oppenheimer (I know… I just love it…), The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Memento, Batman Begins, Tenet. I’ve been told I would enjoy The Prestige and Insomnia, but who knows? Did I tell you that not one but TWO separate males (and they know who they are) reacted to me watching Memento for the first time by saying, “Did you really JUST watch Memento?” If that ain’t the whole point of this newsletter…

Akosua
Sorry men! I could only prioritize one movie made in the first year of my life starring a strong-jawed man with a peroxide blonde dye job (Fight Club). I can’t believe I forgot about the tattoos! I’m not sure what’s worse: the fact that he did some of those tattoos himself or the fact that tattoo artists were doing them for him. That detail has to be the most GOOFY part of the whole thing and I’m certain it was just included as a way to like, make the movie different. Not like other girls! However, the stick and poke of it all does very much make Memento a Tumblr movie, although I don’t think it was ever popular on my side of Tumblr.

Allison
It was SUCH a Tumblr movie, as Christopher Nolan movies often were back in the day, and I think you’re right on the money about the aesthetic factoring into its popularity on that particular platform. I’ve chatted about famous Tumblr movies in past issues (Drive, Inside Llewyn Davis, Pacific Rim…) but I’d argue that Memento is stylistically closest to the grunge look favored by Tumblristas, especially in the 2010s. The stick and poke tattoos, the bottle blonde dye job, the concept of being cocaine skinny, Carrie-Anne Moss’ short-haired tough girl, the way you just know that set reeked of cigarette smoke…

Akosua
And that’s another thing that Breathe In and Memento share — THEY’RE TUMBLR MOVIES! In a different world, the babygirlification of Guy Pearce would have happened on Tumblr. But the world wasn’t ready for that.

Something that I think should also be recalled about Memento is that it is adapted from a short story written by Christopher Nolan’s brother, Jonathan. I can imagine that the short story was probably very fun because the premise of Memento — a man having difficulty trying to avenge his wife’s death because he has no short-term memory—is exactly the kind of thing that makes a good short story work. It’s sparky and can be covered in less than ten pages. The problem of scale does affect Memento. It would be a tighter and better movie with just 15 or 20 minutes shaved off. Maybe 30! The concluding twist loses its oomph because it’s been so BUILT UP and then it’s actually just like, whatever. That kind of soft ending works in a literary form because you’re indulging in style and language, and that narrative structure feels a little less important. (At least to me.) Again, it’s also much shorter. In the movie, all the dithering around builds up to something that feels incredibly uneventful.

Allison
There came a point in Memento where — and I’m sorry to out you, as well as myself — we were both sort of nodding off. The middle section is overlong and starts to get so repetitive, especially once you understand what the schtick is with the non-linear narrative. (Men claim to LOVE a non-linear narrative, and yet so many of them were confused when Greta Gerwig used a similar technique in Little Women…) It feels a bit radical of us to claim that Memento could stand to lose anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes, because people fucking ride for this movie. And more power to them, I just have some notes. I did start having fun when the timelines finally caught up to each other and Ralph from the Sopranos got to tell Guy Pearce’s Leonard about himself. It’s such a hokey thing, having one character whose job it is to be like, “And here’s the TRUTH, buddy,” but here it’s a riot. It would be even better if we hadn’t just come off of almost two hours of watching Leonard reiterate over and over that he has no short-term memory. We know! Like you said, once the film finally gets to the point, it’s almost too little too late. Fortunately, Pearce really does sell the ending, and it’s absolutely wacky enough to work.

Saying all this about Memento (how it could use an editor, basically… respectfully…) does remind me of The Brutalist, which is what initially brought us here. Credit where credit is due! It feels important to touch on, especially on this momentous day of Guy Pearce’s Oscar nomination for The Brutalist, how we both watched the first half of that movie like, “Yeah! I see what you’re getting at here!” But as opposed to Memento, which only needs a bit of its runtime shaved off to flow more smoothly, The Brutalist could’ve taken off, like, a full hour and I wouldn’t have missed it. And I am not someone to complain needlessly about long movies! I just boldly named Oppenheimer as my second favorite Nolan film! I’m not sure The Brutalist earns its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, but man does Guy Pearce milk every second he’s on screen. For better or worse, I’m still not quite sure.

Akosua
I remember the moment that Guy Pearce and his massive moustache appeared in The Brutalist because I really sat up! (That moustache is only rivalled by the humongous one they slap on Bill Skarsgård in Nosferatu for some reason.) As you noted during the intermission (a gorgeous idea, wrong movie for it), Guy Pearce was in a completely different movie. Where Adrien Brody and Alessandro Nivola set the course for subtle and charismatic performances, Guy Pearce charged in like a tasteless American in a gorgeously designed library. That was sort of needed for the role but at times he was doing Shakespeare in the Park. Loud and brash and unsubtle. If I thought The Brutalist was a better movie — I agree that I was sold pre-intermission and then it lost me — I would have been more mad at the performance, but in the end he gave some spark to something that was really sparkless. (I hate The Brutalist even more because everyone insists on calling it the great American epic, which seems to be a bit of planted marketing rhetoric.) I don’t think that Guy Pearce should win the Oscar (without having even seen The Apprentice, the award belongs to Jeremy Strong) but I’m glad he got the nomination because he seems like one of the few people in Hollywood with integrity, and because if it means he will continue to give us fun little moments like the Guardian questionnaire where he says the greatest love of his life is/was his ex-wife, I’ll take it.

Allison
And that’s exactly it, right? Guy Pearce is both an exciting actor and an exciting celebrity, an increasingly rare combination. (I think of Jeremy Strong the same way, but I won’t get into that right now.) I love your description of his performance in The Brutalist — a tasteless American in a gorgeously designed library indeed! Music to my ears! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, and like you I came to appreciate his performance by the end after coming to the conclusion that he gave The Brutalist some much-needed juice, but I do think it’s tonally inconsistent with the rest of the thing. Whatever, at least he was doing something! He was taking a risk! It’s gonzo and weird from the jump, when he crash lands on that library set and starts screaming at Adrien Brody and Alessandro Nivola. It only gets weirder, like when he *SPOILER* unceremoniously disappears from the story entirely after being outed as a rapist. He’s not matching what anyone else is doing, but no one else is matching what he’s doing either. At times you almost get the sense that he was being directed by someone other than Brady Corbet, but it is the element of The Brutalist that stuck with me. As I said above, he will always turn in a Performance.

There’s something to be said about his turn in The Brutalist vs. Jeremy’s in The Apprentice, but, again, that’s for another issue. It all comes down to me admiring when an actor are willing to Go There, almost at the expense of everyone around them. Like, watching Joe Alwyn try to keep up with Guy Pearce was embarrassing. For Joe!

Akosua
You know my thoughts on Joe Alwyn. I’m really trying not to get into it here because I won’t stop. But let me just say this about his performance in The Brutalist — a little boy scrambling to keep up. He is SO UNINTERESTING despite being completely absurd. He is vanilla pudding. No, less than vanilla pudding, because at least that has a little flavor. The fact that his is basically the last voice we hear before the epilogue… another bad Corbet decision.

Allison
I’m sorry for baiting you but I haaaaaaad to. Joe Alwyn has no business being anywhere, let alone in an Oscar movie! It’s bewildering to me that he has stans, and I have to believe these are all people who are claiming to love him out of spite. I thought he was good after seeing him in Catherine Called Birdy, and then I realized that was just Lena Dunham being a talented writer and director. Whatever!!! Nobody wants to hear me say that but it’s true! Don’t even get me started on Adam Driver…

Before this issue spirals into us complaining about the ex Mr. Swift, do you have any final thoughts on Guy Pearce? I remember looking at you after we finished Memento and saying, “What if Guy Pearce ends up being my most-watched actor in 2025?” I suddenly want to make my way through his filmography. I can only imagine that it’s packed with a host of super interesting performances that we’re missing out on.

Akosua
While I fear Guy Pearce overexposure, I do hope that this Oscar nom means we’re going to see him a lot more in a variety of interesting roles. He deserves a leading man role that puts him in an Actors on Actors with Josh O’Connor or somebody equally compelling. I think they’re two of the few actors in Hollywood that have real interests and don’t just drag a book out for promo. And that’s all I have to say.

1. Allison note: I endorse this.

2. Akosua note: I’d like to add that if there seems to be a light tone of misogyny here, there is in fact a heavy tone of misogyny here because that’s what it is to make a movie about an age-gap relationship in the 2010s.