For decades some critics have argued the Oscars award the most acting, not the best acting. The claim is demonstrable, too, as seen by Joaquin Phoenix‘s subtle work in The Master or You Were Never Really Here going looked over, but his big showy take in Joker gaining recognition. See, yet again, Jessica Chastain’s win for an over-the-top turn in The Eyes of Tammy Faye after putting in incredible work in The Tree of Life and Take Shelter.And, to be fair, at one point in Sing Sing, Colman Domingo does give what you might expect from a typically Oscar-nomianted performance. In the film, Domingo plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, an innocent man who finds meaning in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program while serving a life sentence in prison. Late in the story, Divine G learns that he has been once again denied parole. This news comes while the RTA mounts a theatrical production that he considers silly and disrespectful. Worse, he suffers a personal setback as well.The bad news breaks G down, which Domingo expresses in a big, over-the-top moment, full of shouting and wild gestures. Perhaps the scene is why the Academy recognized Domingo with a Best Actor nomination, his second consecutive honor after being nominated for Rustin last year. And yet, Domingo does so much more in Sing Sing. In its best scenes, Sing Sing asks Domingo to give a technically challenging performance, one that relies on quiet and stillness. It asks Domingo to give the best and most nuanced performance of the year. And he does, even if it goes ultimately awarded by the Oscars come Sunday night.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Playing With RealityDirected by Greg Kwedar, who co-wrote the screenplay with Clint Bentley, Sing Sing adapts the story of Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield. Domingo steps into the role of Divine G, but Divine Eye plays himself, as do most of the others who appear as inmates. In fact, with the exception of Paul Raci as theater director Brent and Sean San José as Divine G’s friend Mike Mike (both fantastic), Domingo is the only professional actor in the cast.This use of non-professional actors lends Sing Sing an immediacy that sets it apart from most inspirational prison movies. A lesser film would make Divine G as an inspirational figure whose love for theater melts the resistance of Divine Eye, a testament to the power of art to soften even the most hardened criminal. That’s not what Sing Sing is though.By centering the experiences of real men who have really been incarcerated, Kwedar and Bentley’s script never lets them become such simple tropes. These are complicated men who know firsthand the failures of the American justice system. Despite what the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program calls itself, these men are not “rehabilitated” by the arts, because they require no rehabilitation. Rather the arts help the men hold onto the humanity the prison system tries to erode.It’s a complex story for the movie to tell, one that needs an incredible actor to pull it off. That’s exactly what Domingo provides.Doing the Most By Doing the LeastEarly in Sing Sing, Divine G leads a meeting of the prison’s RTA committee, a group of five inmates sitting in a circle. They’ve gathered to discuss the next batch of potential applicants, and each of the men has an outsized response to the candidates. They wave their hands, crack jokes, and bounce off each other as they share their thoughts. G sits in the center, trying to push his friends for more specific answers for each of the applicants.Kwedar and his cinematographer Pat Scola shoot the first part of the meeting as a oner, the camera doing a steady push in on G, an unusual cinematic choice. Why use such a bravado move for something as mundane as a meeting? Why focus increasing attention on the most still and silent of the men, instead of keying in on the energetic people around him?The obvious answer is that the composition and camera movements communicate to us viewers the importance that G puts on the RTA. It’s the thing that keeps him alive in the prison. At first glance, G’s reactions betray slight contempt for his fellow inmates, irritation that they don’t take this as seriously as him. However, the push in forces us to look closer, to see everything that Domingo does in the scene. When G asks Mike Mike, his closest friend in the group, to give “the long answer” after getting a dismissive short answer, Domingo leans slightly toward his castmate and smiles. He displays the man’s genuine affection for Mike Mike, which helps him stifle his annoyance.Conversely, when the rest of the men explode in laughter at a joke, G stumbles for a moment before he joins in too. And his laughter isn’t insincere. He’d like to share in the joy they’re experiencing, but something prevents him. Domingo plays the temporary confusion in G’s eyes, the quick shuffle to change his posture. In short, this push-in does focus on something worth the viewers’ attention. It’s just not the big, showy things we’re used to seeing in Oscar movies.Smallest Is BestDomingo makes similarly subtle moves throughout Sing Sing. He freezes, starts to adopt a new posture, and then lets that drop after a parole board asks G if the RTA hasn’t just taught him how to act reformed instead of actually reforming him. Up until that moment, he’s hid his irritation at the sheer injustice of his situation behind a benign smile during his many scenes with Divine Eye. He even pretends to hide his frustrations with Divine Eye not investing the same amount of appreciation into the RTA that G does.So when Domingo does go big late in the film, he does so to communicate G’s desperation and his discomfort. After weeks of supporting his fellow actors as they mount a ridiculous production they wrote called Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, after the one plumb dramatic role goes to the indifferent Eye instead of him, and after a heartbreaking loss, G finally breaks.Domingo stomps and shouts and gets belligerent. He cries and shudders. He shakes his fists. However, he does it not to be more believable but to show the audience how unmoored G has become. G’s lost himself and flails for attention, expressed through Domingo’s use of obvious acting tics.In this way, G’s rant shows exactly why Domingo deserves the Best Actor Oscar. And it’s not for the usual reasons. He doesn’t deserve it because that’s when he does the most acting. Rather he deserves it because he understands that his character is at his fakest when he does the most acting. When Domingo does his quietest acting, that’s when he makes G into a real, complex person, and that’s truly the best acting of 2024.The post The Actor Who Should Win the Oscar: An Appreciation of Colman Domingo appeared first on Den of Geek.