Mahershala is our finest living actor

Rating: 7/10 (22 July 2019)

Don Shirley is regarded by hardcore jazz connoisseurs as a darker shade of Liberace. Sure he's technically proficient, but his music lacks feeling. He had a propensity for diluting his jazz attack with vanilla classical leanings. Most likely his way of currying favor with rich benefactors. So, I was shocked to hear, as a jazz aficionado, that a biopic was being made about the Dr. Why not Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, or Bud Powell? Players that skinned their hearts for music, gigged all day and night (when not locked into marathon recording studio sessions) while folks threw pennies, and in the end couldn't even afford to pay for their own funerals. Those cats were real artists and hopefully their time to be rediscovered and appreciated will come. I pray that an actor of Mahershala's caliber is called upon to play them. Mahershala performs a pure act of alchemy here. He takes on the role of a man who was too dull to even make a brief appearance in his own life story, and transforms him into the hippest, most engaging cat on the planet. While doing so, he gives yet another subtle, nuanced, refreshingly ego-free masterclass on the fine art of acting. By all accounts Dr. Shirley was bereft of any sense of humor, so it was smart to have a Farrelly Bro direct this. The laughs come well-timed and in gale-force. Viggo is solid as usual, but even an actor on his advanced level is dwarfed by Ali's preternatural talent. Linda Cardellini is as cute as a squirrel's nut, it's as if she never ages. I was pleased to see her doing her natural thing in this. She's always worth watching. Between this and Ali's bravura performance in True Detective III (with a fine Stockton to Malone assist from top notch writer Nic Pizzolatto) I can unequivocally and categorically state that Mahershala Ali is our greatest living actor, hands down!