By Christina NewlandFeatures correspondent
Neon
The border collie stole the show at this week’s Oscar nominees luncheon – despite being snubbed for his role in the French courtroom thriller. But his performance is one for the ages.
In the pantheon of great canine actors, from Rin Tin Tin and Lassie onwards, none has yet had much sway at the Academy Awards. Enter: a placid, blue-eyed border collie named Messi, seven years of age and currently living what appears to be a blessed life on the pre-Oscars press circuit thanks to his key role in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall – this week, charming Hollywood’s great and good at the Oscars nominees luncheon.
More like this:
As ever, the French seem to be light years ahead in their cinematic nous, as the latest big canine talent to hit our movie screens has, at least, picked up the Cannes Film Festival‘s prestigious Palm Dog award for his stellar performance. And while Messi may not have actually been nominated for a little gold man – despite a clamour from fans online saying he should have been – his swell of popularity has proven that perhaps the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences should reconsider an animal acting category.
Alamy
If the human bond to our domesticated wolf friends is deep and self-evident, so too is our motion picture history with them: some of the great three-hankie melodramas, from Disney’s Old Yeller (1957) to Italian melodrama Umberto D (1952), centre on dogs. After all, it’s hard to deny that a dog in peril is the fastest way to get an audience in the throes of terror. In Anatomy of a Fall, just such a scenario happens to Messi’s character, family dog Snoop, the innocent bystander in this murder mystery and story of moral and psychological complexity.
His terrifying conviction
In one scene of unsparing turmoil and fear, Snoop seems to have been suddenly poisoned. Messi rolls on the floor, looking genuinely and terrifyingly unwell; director Justine Triet has said that Messi was “not just another character or some animal running around [but] as much a part of the film’s ensemble as any of the other actors”, and revealed that after his 22 days on set, the film’s cast and crew gave the dog star a standing ovation. Rightfully so; his performance is one for the canine canon, and Messi holds his own opposite Sandra Hüller, who plays the family matriarch and main suspect in her husband’s murder.
Laura Martin Contini, the long-time dog trainer and coach who has owned Messi since he was a pup, was thrilled to have him in Triet’s film, and has noted that the boy who plays Daniel, Milo Machado Graner, became particularly close to Messi as time went on. It was precisely the kind of real-life bond that the boy and the dog needed to make Snoop such a key confidant in the story. With the film repeatedly giving events a dog’s eye view, Messi pulls off some truly eye-opening sequences – particularly when he essentially “plays dead” so convincingly that his tongue lolls out of his mouth. This is made all the more impressive given that at seven years old, this is Messi’s biggest role to date; his owner Contini says she always knew he had it in him, but he had only done a few advertisements in his native France up until this point.
Neon
In spite of the snub, Messi has proven to be favourite among his two-legged thespian colleagues, Messi was seen schmoozing with an awestruck Ryan Gosling, there for his Barbie best supporting actor nod; Gosling was likely feeling verklempt once more about the Academy’s exclusion of a beloved colleague. Meanwhile, with luminaries like Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos and Martin Scorsese in the room, Messi can at least be hopeful that his star power will not go unnoticed to a crop of talented auteurs. With that kind of charisma, it’s fair to say that his next role is practically on a leash. Lovable, memorable in look with those big blue eyes, and crucially capable of all kinds of surprising tasks beyond “looking cute”, Messi has all it takes to be a great dog actor.
If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can’t-miss news delivered to your inbox every Friday.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter
