Colin Firth: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

5 Awesome Performances...

5. Vince Collins - Where The Truth Lies

Colin Firth has always played more serious roles and he's not afraid of going to darker places. His work in the UK has regularly shown this. Hollywood, however, saw a slightly tubby British gent who could take supporting roles to more aquiline leading men like Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient. It wasn't until his starring role in Atom Egoyan's Palme d'Or nominated drama that they saw it for themselves. A noir-esque dissection of a 1950's comedy duo Vince Collins (Firth) and Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon), it tells, through flashback, how their stand-up relationship fell apart and a young girl mysteriously died. The film is a sex and drug-fuelled journey into how a friendship can be destroyed by one mistake and a career can be derailed in 1950's America by rumours of bisexuality. Through a convoluted plot, the two men meet again in 1972 when Collins is having his biography written by a young female journalist. When it appears she's getting closer to the truth, the noose then tightens around her own neck. It is Bacon who has the showier role here but Firth is brilliant as he underplays but still manages to exude both bitterness as to how his career ended, and manipulation as he forces the female journalist into sex with a young actress just so he can blackmail her (and keep her away from the true 1950's tale of drugs and deceit). He plays a man who not only made an error that destroyed his life (trying to have sex with Morris during a threesome) but also being blackmailed by his apparent friendly valet. This performance was a calling card to Hollywood that Firth was more than just another British actor. He had hidden depths too.