The movie Paul Mescal calls a perfect film: “Consistently ruins my day”

Posted On January 14, 2026January 14, 2026

There aren’t many lines of work where devastating the public is the sign of a job well done, but acting is one of them. If James Cameron had cast Jerry Seinfeld and Madonna in Titanic rather than Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, few people would find themselves curled in the foetal position in a puddle of tears by the time the credits rolled, and that would be an unequivocal failure.

Some movies are meant to ruin your day, and if they don’t, the people involved should be criticised, not thanked, and Paul Mescal knows this better than anyone, since he’s not even 30 yet, but he’s already established himself as one of the most heart-rending performers, and it all started with the hit series Normal People in 2020, which followed the excruciating vulnerability of first love. 

From there, he starred in Aftersun, a tearjerker about young fatherhood. All of Us Strangers took him back into the realm of romance, this time with ghosts involved. The resulting devastation was off the charts. Then, of course, there’s Hamnet, in which he plays a father (William Shakespeare) grappling with the sudden death of his young child. Non-stop laughs.

All of this might lead you to believe that the young star is a bit of a masochist, but as it turns out, he can take as good as he gives, because when asked by The New Yorker to name one of his most essential films, he called out Derek Cianfrance’s 2010 drama Blue Valentine. “I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a different answer,” he said, “[B]ut it hasn’t really changed in terms of something that consistently ruins my day in the best sense of the word.”

This no-holds-barred romantic drama follows the beginning and excruciatingly painful, drawn-out end of a relationship between characters played by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, making Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story look like a Nancy Meyers rom-com, and anyone who can bear to watch it more than once should be studied by scientists.  

The process of making the film sounds even more traumatic. Williams and Gosling rented a home together to prepare for their roles and pretended to be in a relationship similar to their characters’. They set a budget for themselves that aligned with their characters’ finances and found ample material for arguments. Much of their dialogue in the movie is improvised, which no doubt adds to the eye-watering tension.

Actors have gone to extreme lengths over the years to get themselves into a role, whether by gaining hundreds of pounds of muscle or becoming a shoemaker. But forcing yourself to be in a festering, toxic relationship has to be the worst of them all. Even Christian Bale would cower at the thought.

Mescal revealed that he watched the film for the first time in drama school and remembers being bowled over by the performances, saying, “I’ve always found it so moving… I think it’s a perfect film.” He isn’t alone.

It was one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, but given how uncomfortable it is to watch, it’s hardly surprising that the Oscars breezed right by it on their way to awarding The King’s Speech with the top prize.

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