If McGregor ever feels any fear, it never shows. It's a mystically lovely moment, one that encapsulates in a fragile bubble the sensation of suddenly realizing that you can't live without someone. His Curt Wild is a naked ape who comes wrapped only in his own mythology. What's wonderful about the performance is the way McGregor balances the feral sexual menace of his character with a carefully veiled yet undeniable crushability. Strangely enough, maybe it's that sensual freedom that puts McGregor squarely in league with old-time Hollywood leading men.
Movies are so different now.
It's actors like McGregor who can keep them honest, who can be purely sexual in the way they speak and move, even as they clearly have no interest in the game-playing of machismo. Like his forebears, McGregor understands that sometimes the most deeply sensual gestures are the seemingly small ones, like the shy flicker of an eye or the tenderness in a smile. All rights reserved.