Yet another flawless turn by Bill Nighy -- perhaps his finest?
Every film in which I have had the distinct joy of watching Bill Nighy, I have been impressed by his astonishing versatility and tangible charisma (despite his unconventional status as a leading man). I thought Love, Actually was an extremely mediocre film yet Nighy brought a spark to his performance as an aging British rocker bent on appearing nude on live television that made the film worth the effort of slogging through the rest (particularly the hideous "young dude comes to America" storyline). Notes on a Scandal and Valkyrie -- just two other films I can mention that were made much more rich because of Nighy's powerful turns in each (as a brutally cuckolded husband in the former and as a German WWII general, Friedrich Olbricht, willing to betray Hitler in the latter).
In this film, Nighy played the part of an awkward, exceptionally lonely older man, a man with painful inhibitions, who still has a shred of some old, faded idealism. Nighy played his part so effectively that literally the film would have not been of the same quality without him. I did greatly appreciate Kelly McDonald's lovely, if painful performance (I admired her in Gosford Park and earlier in Trainspotting) but Nighy made this film his own entirely --- our hearts broke with his.
Was this his finest performance?