In a win for reserved, hot people with nice quads, Paul Mescal is an Academy Award nominee for his devastatingly good performance in Charlotte Well’s debut feature Aftersun. I’m glad Academy members had enough sense to recognize such an impressively concealed performance, particularly in a category that’s often filled with older, established men doing hammy impersonations of dead people in bad prosthetics. (No one on this year’s ballot checks all of these boxes, praise the Lord!)
For anyone who hasn’t seen Aftersun, I hope this moment for Mescal encourages more people to seek out the film and, consequently, ruin their mental health and any future listenings of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” The fact that the movie is garnering the attention it deserves following Mescal’s acting nominations is the perfect occasion to make a case for his other phenomenal performance last year in a similarly meditative but openly darker film.
So let me recommend watching Mescal’s other (and equally good) A24 project from 2022, a film that went completely under the radar for reasons I don’t understand, God’s Creatures.
Directed by Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, God’s Creatures is a searing drama about a mother’s crisis of conscience. English actress Emily Watson is tour-de-force as Aileen, a manager at a seafood processing plant in a small, coastal Irish town. When her estranged son Brian (Mescal) returns home from an unexplained move to Australia, her monotonous life is suddenly filled with excitement. She showers Brian with the sort of blind, unquestioning love often associated with being a mother. Meanwhile, other members of their household seem more aware of his defiance and immaturity.
Aileen is ultimately forced to confront Brian’s toxicity when a policeman informs her that he’s been accused of rape by one of her co-workers, Sarah (Aisling Franciosi). Aileen instinctively covers up for him and even comforts him in the immediate aftermath. However, she spends the remainder of the film wrestling with her decision, the town’s reaction, her relationship with Sarah, and the boy she thought she raised properly. All this tension amounts to a very Biblical ending that is satisfying but still leaves you with a pit in your stomach.
Watching God’s Creatures for the first time, I couldn’t help but think about what an interesting companion piece the film is for Aftersun. (Although, I suggest watching them days apart, given their bleakness.) Both movies require their stars to give show-not-tell performances. Much of the plot happens off-screen, backstories are concealed and characters mostly process emotions internally.
These movies also demonstrate Mescal’s versatility as an actor. From what we’ve seen of him so far, he doesn’t acquire the sort of Christian Bale-type of range where every performance feels completely distinct, so much so that he disappears into a character. (Honestly, thank God.) Rather, he can apply his signature good looks and self-effacing charm to different characters based on what a project demands. In Aftersun, these traits help viewers feel empathy and curiosity for Mescal’s mysterious Calum. In God’s Creatures, they leave you feeling betrayed and repulsed.
Don’t get me wrong: Watson absolutely floored me as a conflicted mother. And God’s Creatures is truly her film. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about how well Mescal embodies Brian as a very well-sketched version of a manipulative manchild. This is best displayed in two juxtaposing scenes. In one, early on in the film, he taunts his mute grandfather who seemingly suffers from dementia by shouting profanities in his face while they’re home alone together, the way a child might tinker with their parents’ things when they’re not around. In another, before he has to testify in court, he cheerfully sings a hymn to his grandfather, getting him to join in, and even prompting Aileen to cry. It’s one of the eeriest moments in all of the movie.
The film premiered in Cannes last year to strong reviews, and Holmer and Davis have since spoken to the Guardian about the challenges getting the film made, presumably because of its difficult subject matter and the way approaches rape culture in a ruthless, unforgiving manner. I personally think it’s a more truthful and certainly less smug film than Todd Field’s Tár in the way it approaches misused power and consequences.
Earlier this month, the BFI London Film Festival announced that they would screen God’s Creatures. One can assume Mescal’s ascent as Best Actor contender this awards season or maybe the announcement that he’s our next Gladiator may have had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful.
The film is currently available to watch on VOD. I highly suggest getting acquainted with evil Paul Mescal for 90 minutes, meditating on his performance, and then scrubbing it out of your mind by watching his awkward dad dancing in Aftersun.
