Dopo la cancellazione preventiva di ogni singola sequenza che avesse a che fare con il minaccioso John Paul Getty interpretato dal controverso premio Oscar Kevin Spacey, ci sono voluti circa 9 giorni per il veterano Christopher Plummer a cercare di sostituire l'attore immerso negli scandali sessuali e vestire i nuovi panni del magnate americano nel nuovo film di Ridley Scott.
Uno scambio , e un cambio nella tabella di marcia della post-produzione di un film che era già terminato, che è costato alla Sony Pictures circa 8 milioni aggiuntivi, eppure probabilmente Tutti i soldi del mondo sarà uno dei titoli che più incasseranno da qui al prossimo mesi sul mercato internazionale, con o senza Spacey. Le prime recensioni della stampa Usa concordando difatti: il lavoro attoriale del premio Oscar Plummer non si limita soltanto a sostituire l'interprete soggetto ad una curiosa damnatio memoriae, ma dona severità e malignità ad un personaggio della storia contemporanea che sembra già entrare di diritto tra i più memorabili villain della filmografia di Ridley Scott. Il film è stato candidato a tre Golden Globe, siamo sicuri che, almeno per Plummer, la corsa alla seconda nomination all'Oscar potrebbe essere soltanto all'inizio.
Plummer confers Getty with an authority and sense of resolve so complete that we’re entirely seduced into thinking we’re getting a taste of the real man, of what it’s like to be so far above the fray of normal human concern. What could have been simply a tasty cameo is fleshed out just enough to go beyond caricature into something truer and deeper, to get a real sense of the power of a self-made man who has traveled so far as to have become something entirely singular. The fact that the actor could step into this role on a moment’s notice and achieve something so precise and resonant — and which will no doubt be remembered as one of his most iconic performances — is an astonishment to be prized.
[Plummer] relishes and luxuriates in the role. It fits him perfectly. Getty is exactly right for Plummer’s talent for subversive glittery-eyed grandfatherly mischief, cut with a dash of misanthropic malice…With the help of Plummer’s tremendous villain-autocrat performance, Ridley Scott gives us a very entertaining parable about money and what it can’t buy.
Plummer, oozing entitlement, is by far the best part of the movie. So much so it’s impossible to imagine Spacey doing as good a turn under mounds of his prosthetic makeup. Plummer’s scenes with co-star Michelle Williams — delivering another strong, understated performance — are worth the price of admission.
The film confirms Christopher as the most reliable emergency Plummer in history. He is icily brilliant in the role, making Getty a cloistered empire-builder in the Ridley Scott tradition, alongside Gladiator’s Emperor Commodus, Blade Runner’s Eldon Tyrell and Alien: Covenant’s Peter Weyland. Like them, Getty is a man not drunk on power, but driven so stonily sober by its possibilities, he has come to see the workings of the world in a frosty new light.
The damning allegations of rape and various shades of abhorrent sexual transgressions against Spacey, as atrocious as they are, quickly become an afterthought the second Plummer, seemingly born to play this spiteful, vindictive character, walks onto the screen and tears it all down. No small feat given how much shock and ink was spilled over Scott’s eleventh hour recasting and superhuman, perhaps historic accomplishment of reshooting the entire role in a flash (there’s one early shot in a Saudi desert where Plummer looks CGI’d in, but otherwise, the integration is flawless). You won’t wonder what Spacey’s version of the movie was like. You just won’t care.
Fonte: IndieWire
