John Malkovich could finally have an Oscar secret weapon, and his name is Martin McDonagh.
“Wild Horse Nine,” the black comedy that bowed in competition at the Venice Film Festival — where it drew a 13-minute standing ovation — before turning up as Telluride’s surprise patron screening on Friday afternoon, drops a pair of CIA operatives onto Easter Island in the tense days before the 1973 Chilean coup, then lets the absurdity metastasize from there.
The ensemble is deep and soars — Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Parker Posey, Chilean breakout star Mariana Di Girolamo — but the film rests on its firm two-hander: Sam Rockwell and, in the performance generating the loudest awards buzz, Malkovich.
Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell in “Wild Horse Nine”
Searchlight Pictures
Searchlight Pictures, for its part, knows the route from the Lido to the Dolby — one of the last two ceremonies the Oscars will stage there before the show decamps to downtown L.A. and YouTube in 2029 — and has a long track record of positioning filmmaker-driven works as contenders without sanding down the eccentricities.
But the most intriguing Oscar question around “Wild Horse Nine” may not be best picture-related at all. It’s simpler: Is it finally Malkovich time?
Malkovich is the obvious story for Searchlight, but hardly the only one. Rockwell could steamroll into supporting actor — where sources say he’ll campaign — and, much as his “Three Billboards” run helped pull co-star Woody Harrelson into the category alongside him, his momentum here could lift the veteran and criminally never-nominated Buscemi. Di Girolamo, the Chilean star Pablo Larraín introduced to the world in “Ema,” could break through with American voters and enter the supporting actress conversation.
Mariana di Girolamo and John Malkovich in “Wild Horse Nine”
Searchlight Pictures
Waits and Posey make the ensemble itself part of the film’s awards identity — an asset at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where a group campaign can build momentum even when any single performance is fighting for oxygen. The Oscar math is trickier.
For all the best picture, screenplay and ensemble possibilities, Malkovich remains the clearest story to embrace. There’s something inherently cinematic about a great actor returning to the Oscar race after such a long absence.
Leave it to McDonagh to make that impossible again.
