Tito in Living in Oblivion
Small-time filmmaker Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi) is in the midst of making his first feature film. Nothing seems to be going right, and the budget is so slim that he won’t even change a prop carton of sour milk. The two leads, Nicole (Catherine Keener) and Chad Palomino (James LeGros), have slept together and created on-set friction. Tito (Peter Dinklage) complains about dwarf clichés, and Nick tries his best to keep his sanity and his wallet from emptying before the picture is finished. That’s Hollywood!
It’s a stylistic movie about a movie that flips from monochrome back to color depending on which movie we are seeing, and yes that’s quite cool. A satirical take on the filmmaking process that no matter how crazy with fights and self-absorbed actors, has that dark reality to it. This was Dinklage’s big-screen debut, and he luckily got his say on how actors with dwarfism are treated with some memorable dialogue. Steve Buscemi rules as the hair-tearing director, and his whole crumbling character really does glue the madness together.
Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano
Poor but glamorous Roxanne (Haley Bennett) wants to marry only for love, not money. When she sees Christian de Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison Jr) at the theatre she is instantly smitten. She asks her childhood friend Cyrano de Bergerac (Dinklage), who is secretly in love with her, to set up a meeting with Christian, but Cyrano discovers that Christian lacks every romantic skill needed to woo Roxanne. Cyrano begins to write poetic platitudes of love so that Christian can pass them off as his own words. When jealous Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn) intervenes and sends both men to war, Christian has the sad epiphany that Cyrano was really writing the words for him. Will Roxanne ever know the truth?
This modernized version of the epic and classic love tragedy sees the tale fall into a more serious light. Gone is Cyrano de Bergerac’s preposterously oversized nose, and is replaced with the fact that Cyrano is now a man with dwarfism, which is what makes him feel ostracized. Dinklage works his way emotionally through hidden love and despair to finally, happiness. He also shows off his impressive singing voice. He’s definitely a man of considerable talent.
James in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
After the rape and murder of her daughter, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) decides that her local police department, and especially, its Chief, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), isn’t doing much to track down the killer. She rents three billboards to express her anger at the ongoing investigation that has become almost forgotten. Although her actions are noble, the Chief feels it’s too personal, and his racist subordinate, Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), decides Mildred is the enemy. James (Peter Dinklage), a local car salesman, takes a shine to Mildred, but his affections are mistimed and unrequited. So in a town full of anger, hate, and revenge, can Mildred ever feel human again, and will there ever be justice for her teenage daughter? Dinklage is emotionally poignant when highlighting James’s dwarfism and perfectly evocative in some of his not-so-subtle lines. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, was a huge success. This was mostly to do with a simple premise that had complicated characters portrayed with comical timing and a hefty amount of soul.
Roman Lunyov in I Care a Lot
Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) makes her living by preying on the elderly by convincing the courts to grant her guardianship over as many vulnerable people as she can. She then sells off their estates while the victims live the rest of their drugged-up existence within the walls of a care home. Her latest victim is the lonely Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest). However, Jennifer Peterson isn’t as helpless as all the other elderly inmates, her identity is false, and she secretly has a son, Russian mobster, Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage), who is not going to take the news of his mother’s “legal” abduction well.
I Care a Lot is a satirical social commentary that is dark and almost realistic in its nightmarish approach to robbing the elderly of their possessions and life. Without any good, honest characters to choose from, I Care a Lot isn’t the average film and the audience is forced to take a side with either unscrupulous con-artists or mobsters. It’s clever, long overdue, and a great cautionary tale of how sadistically selfish those who care for us can be.
