Wild Horse Nine puts John Malkovich in the best actor race

Wild Horse Nine has now played two major festivals, and at both of them the conversation afterwards has been about the same man.

John Malkovich plays a dying CIA officer in Martin McDonagh's new film, which is set in 1973 and follows two agents (Malkovich and Sam Rockwell) sent from Santiago to Easter Island shortly before the Chilean military coup. It is the kind of part awards campaigns are built around. This one has started without anybody formally announcing it.

Thirteen minutes, or fourteen

The world premiere at Venice drew an ovation that Variety put at thirteen minutes and The Hollywood Reporter at fourteen. Ovation length is the least reliable statistic in film journalism (nobody agrees on when the clock starts), but the direction of travel is not in dispute.

The film then opened Telluride, and Telluride gave Malkovich its Silver Medallion, an honour for a body of work rather than a single performance. Festivals do not tend to hand those to people they expect to be forgotten by Christmas.

The ovation is the press release. The medallion is the endorsement.

What the film has going for it

Searchlight Pictures releases it on Friday 6 November. That is a conventional awards date: late enough to be fresh in voters' minds, early enough to avoid the December pile-up.

McDonagh's name helps. His scripts are known for dialogue actors want to say, and the supporting cast (Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, Tom Waits, Mariana Di Girolamo, Ailín Salas) reads like a list of people who took the job for the pages.

The complication

Rockwell. Variety's review called the pair a double act, and The Hollywood Reporter said they make a perfect pair. That is lovely for the film and awkward for a campaign.

Voters have to be persuaded to separate two performances the film deliberately fuses. Searchlight will have to decide whether Rockwell goes supporting. That decision, rather than another round of applause, is the thing worth watching, because it tells you how confident the studio is that Malkovich can carry the lead category on his own.

The film opens on 6 November.