Nocturnal 
Martin McDonagh reckons John Malkovich’s latest performance is so good, one Oscar simply won’t cut it.
The filmmaker says Malkovich “deserves three Oscars” for his turn in Wild Horse Nine, his new Cold War-era dark comedy that just had its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
Speaking to the Press Association at the premiere, McDonagh called it “one of the best performances” he’s seen in years. “It’s worthy of three Oscars,” he said. “It’s funny. It’s angry in places, but it’s very sweet and sort of sorrowful in places too.”
It’s bold praise, but Malkovich’s awards buzz isn’t just coming from his director. The 72-year-old actor has already picked up the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival for the role, and the film reportedly received a 13-minute standing ovation at its Venice world premiere.
Malkovich has twice been nominated for best supporting actor at the Oscars before, for 1984’s Places in the Heart and 1993’s In the Line of Fire, but has never won. Co-star Sam Rockwell, 57, knows what that journey looks like, having picked up his own first Academy Award for McDonagh’s 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
What the film is actually about
Wild Horse Nine follows CIA officers Chris (Malkovich) and Lee (Rockwell), longtime partners who, shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island. Chris has recently been diagnosed with cancer and begins reckoning with his role in decades of CIA interventions, including his claims about knowing who killed JFK, as the pair’s friendship frays against the backdrop of the island’s moai statues.
The cast also includes Steve Buscemi as the agents’ station chief MJ, Parker Posey as Lee’s wife Marge, Tom Waits, and Chilean actors Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas as two rebellious students who form a bond with Chris.
Buscemi told The Hollywood Reporter that despite the political backdrop, the film is “really a film about relationships… regret, redemption,” while telling the Press Association he hopes audiences “learn something” about the period if they don’t already know the history.
McDonagh, best known for In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin, told the Press Association the film wasn’t written to be political but that its themes have ended up chiming with today. “A lot of what happens in the film is sort of mirroring what’s going on in the present day,” he said. “It wasn’t deliberately set out to be out there but I find that kind of fascinating too.”
Speaking to The Guardian, McDonagh also revealed he started the script by writing “GUILT” and “REGRET” at the top of the page, and admitted he’s a believer in JFK conspiracy theories, telling the paper: “I definitely think there was something going on. I’m definitely a believer in the conspiracy.”
Why it matters
Awards season chatter usually builds slowly, but Wild Horse Nine has gone from a Venice ovation to a Volpi Cup win to a director publicly lobbying for multiple Oscars within the space of a few weeks. For Malkovich, long regarded as one of Hollywood’s most distinctive actors but never an Oscar winner, that’s a significant moment. McDonagh himself already has an Oscar-winning collaborator in Rockwell from Three Billboards, and the pair reuniting here, alongside Buscemi, suggests a film studios will be pushing hard through the rest of the season.
Wild Horse Nine has now screened at Venice, Toronto and London, with a wider release expected to follow as awards campaigning ramps up.
