‘The Actor’ Review – A Charming Film About Lost Memories That’s Riddled With Holes

I imagine the prospect of amnesia is complicated for an actor.

On one hand, wouldn’t it be great to forget your worst performances or reviews, starting fresh without the baggage of, say, that film you did for the paycheck or that well-meaning project that ended up a multiple Razzie nominee? On the other hand, how can you improve if you don’t know what you’ve done before? Aren’t you just left toiling around in mediocrity, or worse, for the sake of your ego? If you consider acting an art of self-possession, you can understand the dilemma.

Strangely enough, this thought experiment is not the driving force behind The Actor. The premise is the same, though. New York-based theater actor Paul Cole (André Holland) has amnesia after being assaulted by the husband of the woman with whom he’s having an affair. He has nothing on him but petty cash and an ID with his address, but he commits to returning to New York to resume his life. His resolve wavers when he meets Edna (Gemma Chan), a costume designer living in the sleepy small town he stops in to help pay for his bus ride home. Paul finds himself caught between the life he’s found and the life he’s lost. Complicating matters further is the persistent feeling that something isn’t quite right with either life. Paul, still struggling with amnesia, must discern reality from fantasy as his sense of self starts unraveling.

What appears central to Cole’s identity crisis is that he was a jerk. When he arrives in New York and begins interacting with his cohort (and I use that term loosely), Paul quickly realizes that he was a two-timing asshat who kept people at a distance. When he asks his best friend Nick (Joe Cole) what kind of man he was, Nick can only offer a dismissive non-answer. That deeply disturbs Paul, as does his other friends’ passing recollections of his philandering and his casual mistreatment of lovers and strangers. It makes for a compelling narrative quandary: how does someone who’s lost their memories deal with the sobering fact that they may not be worth remembering at all? It’s made more compelling by the simpler life with Edna that Paul left behind. It may not be as lively as Manhattan, but he seemed content and far more decent.

Sadly, director Duke Johnson doesn’t fully explore Paul’s internal conflict. Instead, he focuses on Paul’s wavering sanity, suggesting that he’s suffering from an amnesia-fueled psychosis. Johnson primarily conveys this through compelling craft, tapping cinematographer Joe Passarelli and editor Garret Elkins to craft an uneasy atmosphere. Paul often moves fluidly between locations and time, with backgrounds vanishing into darkness for several seconds behind him. Some scenes play with color, shifting from 50s era black-and-white to more contemporary full-color, albeit with a gauzy overlay. Others toy with perspective, like Edna and Paul appearing to watch their relationship’s early days on television. Johnson also relies on more explicit imagery that undercuts Paul’s reality. It ranges from tongue-in-cheek, like Paul’s bus driving past a toy replica of Manhattan, to disturbing, like Paul seeing an eye in a chair leg. Then there’s the fact that several cast members play different characters in the film.

The collective effect is dreamlike and unsettling, but the purpose isn’t entirely clear. What does it mean if Paul is, in fact, insane? We don’t know enough about past or present Paul for that question to be as interesting as Johnson wants. The closest we come to an affecting consequence is through Paul’s time with Edna, brief as it is. The film is most engaging when grounded in their sweet, budding romance. The off-kilter atmosphere benefits them, heightening their palpable connection and heartbreak from being separated by Paul’s return to New York. Through them, we dabble in the practicalities of a forgotten life, like the possibility that Paul has a family, meaning the end of the only love he can remember. It’s a gutting, tragically brief idea lost amongst the film’s competing, confused priorities.  

The lack of clarity doesn’t impact the performances. André Holland is an essential grounding force. He brings an inviting warmth and vulnerability to his scenes, granting us easy access to Paul’s complex emotional reality. His work is critical when the film is at its most opaque. We often don’t fully know what’s happening to Paul and why, but Holland communicates Paul’s feelings so sharply and achingly that you feel for the character anyway. One of Johnson’s greatest choices is repeatedly framing Holland in close-ups, especially when we need that emotional link to process a scene. He has a great part-time partner in Gemma Chan. She matches his warmth and vulnerability, and the two have a sweet, sparkling chemistry that gives Edna and Paul’s romance genuine, weighty stakes. (Perhaps too weighty.)

The Actor is a confounding film, possibly by design. Duke Johnson seems keenly aware of his film’s mystery, conveying it through admittedly handsome aesthetic and directorial flourishes. He also taps into interesting ideas related to that mystery, with André Holland serving as an engrossing vessel for them. The film ultimately loses track of what that mystery is in service of, whether it’s Paul or the world he inhabits. There is enough amongst the film’s disparate parts to enjoy, like Paul and Edna’s romance or the meta gag of seeing Tracey Ullman and others playing multiple roles. However, the parts don’t form a cogent whole. It leaves the film, much like Paul’s memory, frustratingly incomplete.

The Actor will debut exclusively in theaters on March 14, 2025, courtesy of NEON.