Overactors Anonymous: Dickie Bennett, Justified, and Jeremy Davies’s Unintentional Scenery Chewing

While I’ve little affection for the movie Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997), I’ve always been tickled by its outtakes, particularly the one above, which derives from an exchange between the characters of Jim Carrey and Swoosie Kurtz. In the final cut, the two lawyers are at each others’ throats before a judge breaks them up. Carrey’s character begins:

Fletcher: Weight, 105. Yeah, in your bra!
Dana: Your Honor, I object!
Fletcher: You would!
Dana: BASTARD!
Fletcher: HAG!
Judge Stevens: QUIET! Overruled!

In the blooper, Kurtz replaces the word bastard with overactor, a decision that prompts huge laughs not only from Carrey, but also the unseen crew. And why should it not? Jim Carrey does overact, and everyone knows this. However, for the most part, his roles require it; see for example, In Living Color, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. In other words, Carrey’s “scenery chewing” and “camera mugging” and “hamming it up” are intentional, and within the diegesis of the film, such exaggeration (normally) works. The same arguably goes for the following performances.

Intentional Overacting

• John Huston in Chinatown (1974)
  
• Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979)
  
• Tom Hulce in Amadeus (1984)
• Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future (1984)
• Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused (1993)
  
• Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, and co. in the Harry Potter films (2001-11)
• Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
  
• Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
• Dean Norris in Breaking Bad (2008– )
  
• Carrie Preston in The Good Wife (2009– )

Each of these performances is relatively big, broad, and memorable — in a good way. For example, Tom Hulce’s giggly and over-the-top Mozart is a perfect foil to F. Murray Abraham’s gloomy and jealous Salieri. Incidentally, I haven’t seen Amadeus in probably 15 years, but I can still hear Hulce’s giddy laughter in my mind. Similarly, Dean Norris’s braggadocio plays well against Bryan Cranston’s more timid — to the public at least — Walter White. There are some screen performances, however, in which the overacting is unintentional and, therefore, unconvincing, embarrassing, and/or just downright grating.

Unintentional Overacting

• Mickey Rooney in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)
  
• Gene Kelly in Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) and Viva Knievel! (1971) (yeah, I said it…)
• Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980)
  
• Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981)
  
• Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick (1987)
  
• Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (1987)
  
• Renee Zellwegger in Cold Mountain (2003)
  
• Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood (2007) (Thanks, Jen!)
• Christian Bale in The Fighter (2010)
  
• Nicholas Cage and Al Pacino in virtually anything after 1992 (thanks, Noel!)

Ugh. In many of these films, I cannot wait for the actor/character to exit the frame. I must admit, however, that I’ve an affection for Dunaway’s Joan Crawford, and I debated putting her in this list. Nonetheless, I won’t show A Midsummer Night’s Dream in its entirety to my Shakespeare in Film students because of Rooney’s overplayed performance as Puck. The same goes for Duvall in The Shining. While I can tolerate Nicholson’s “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny” and all of the rest of his crazy antics, I find it much harder to sit through Duvall’s whining, screaming, and wide-eyed emoting. I much prefer her alongside Robin Williams in Popeye (1980). What, you’ve never seen it? Get thyself to Netflix stat.

There are also huge performances that theoretically fit in both categories. For example, I’m having a helluva time trying to place these folks/characterizations:

Straddling the Fence

• Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men (1992)
• Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992)
• Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet (1996)
• Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire (1996)
  
• John Malkovich in Con Air (1997) and In the Line of Fire (1993)

For the most part, these performances work for me, but I can see why they would not for other viewers. Sure, Branagh hams it up a bit too much in certain soliloquies and when he’s speaking to his mother (Julie Christie) and/or yelling at Ophelia (Kate Winslet), but much of the time his Hamlet is effective, daring even. I could watch his “To be or not to be” on a loop. Those mirrors! That dagger! That blonde mane! The same goes for Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Yes, in recent years Pacino has become a parody of himself and, as such, has been crowned king of the Overacting Hall of Fame, so I can see why some viewers would label his Lt. Colonel Frank Slade as “unintentional” scenery-chewing. But I find that all his hoo-hah’ing and barking in Scent of a Woman convincingly round out his blind, disgruntled, lonely, and emasculated veteran.

One recent screen performance, however, most certainly does not work for me, and although some of my colleagues respectively disagree, I place it firmly in the “unintentional overacting” category: Jeremy Davies’ portrayal of Dickie Bennett in Justified.

Please, Raylan, Take Out Dickie Bennet

Friday night, the husband and I finished season 2 of FX’s western-inspired drama, Justified, this in preparation for season 3, which premieres tomorrow night (set your DVRs!). Overall, I enjoyed the season, especially Raylan Givens’s funeral duds (sweet Jesus, see below), Margo Martindale’s (award-winning) turn as volatile matriarch Mags Bennett, and Boyd Crowder’s crazy-ass hairdo (also below). Ohhhh yeah, I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for Boyd Crowder, his hair, his white teeth, and his love of language. But I cannot say that I enjoyed Davies’ guest spot on the show.

First, I’ve no problem with some of Davies’ contributions to the headstrong character: the limp, the trucker hat, the greasy beard/mustache, and the backwoods Kentucky accent. All of these things are credible. It’s his exaggerated gestures and all the flailing about that burden the performance for me (and one or two of my colleagues at least). As such, it’s easy for me to echo the Daily Beast‘s review of Christian Bale’s overhyped Dickie Eklund when I speak of Davies’ performance, which is “too distracting to be infused with emotional truth.” (Some spoilers ahead…maybe?)

I’ve been able to access online only a handful of scenes in which Davies’s Dickie Bennet is featured, virtually none of which testifies strongly to my issue with his performance. Consequently, I’m aware this argument might be difficult to uphold for those who’ve not seen the show. Still, the third scene featured in this compilation, in which Dickie has tied Raylan to a tree, hints at it some of the character’s excessive jumping around, pointing, and gesturing that I define as overacting. At least the following two scenes fare better.

In this first clip, Dickie (along with one of his ruffians) breaks into the house of Helen (Raylan’s aunt/stepmother) and Arlo (Raylan’s father). Again, there’s just a taste here of my problem with Davies’s performance overall. Specifically, check out the five seconds in which Dickie invites Helen into the kitchen, “Why dontcha just put down the piece (?) there and come on in; come on, make us some eggs or somethin, whaddya say?” His roundabout way of finger pointing, all that head-tilting, and eye-squinting are just too extreme for such an intimate scene.

In the second clip, Raylan holds Dickie at gunpoint. Obviously fearing for his life, Dickie responds to the US marshal unintelligibly throughout. WTF are you saying, Davies?? Note: the scene is pared down significantly here, so the character’s garbled dialogue isn’t nearly as annoying as it is when drawn out over 4-5 minutes. I understand that most people would be incomprehensible with a gun pointed at their head, myself included, so to some viewers, this individual performance may come across as realistic, justified even (ah, see what I did there?). However, when considered in the context of the entire season (this was episode 10 of 12), the indiscernible dialogue seems way overblown — and downright irritating.

This commenter understands where I’m coming from:

“I don’t like Jeremy Davies’ performances of the last few years not because he’s overacting and extravagant, but because they’re ugly performances — full of nervous tics and affectations that just look bad. Realism barely enters into it — it’s just a matter of him making it impossible for the audience to find any pleasure in his movements.”

Yes, full of tics and affections but lacking reality or pleasure, an analysis that nicely echoes theorist Siegfried Kracauer’s thoughts on the matter. In his book Theory of Film, Kracauer explains that when film critics call out an actor for overacting his/her part, “they wish to express the feeling that his/her acting is somehow, too purposeful, that it lacks the fringe of indeterminacy or indefiniteness which is characteristic of photography” (95). That’s it exactly; many of Davies’s performances in Justified are “too purposeful”: too much fidgeting, too many tics, and too distinct. And that is why I totally align with this viewer as well, who wonders about the gun-pointing scene above, “How Raylan kept from blasting a hole in Dickie Bennett’s (Jeremy Davies) head in the woods, I will never know.” Me neither, sir. Me neither.

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