Glenn Close miraculous in heart-rending “Albert Nobbs”!

Glenn Close, who has never won an Oscar, but been nominated four times is certainly heading for a fifth nomination with her career-best, shocking, moving, heart-breaking portrayal of “Albert Nobbs.” Close also co-produced and co-wrote this beautiful, incredible movie, set in 19th Century Ireland, where most of her countrymen’s aspirations revolve around getting out and going to America. But not Albert Nobbs. Nobbs wants to continue to pass as a man, even though he’s biologically a woman, and to save up enough money to open a tobacconists shop in a nearby Dublin street.

Albert works as a waiter in a high-class hotel. And Close captures the minutiae of this very frightened, up-tight, intense, TENSE,  worried creature.

“Albert Nobbs is a funny little man,” one character says about him, and that he is. He’s just considered an odd duck, but a very, very good waiter. He is an all around excellent dogsbody/servant. Albert Nobbs is the essence of humble, slavish, self-effacing servitude to a fault.

Albert is so good at respectfully, perfectly serving, he gets tips. And he has been saving, super-frugally for all his years in service. And the scenes of him counting his paltry savings by night, which he’s hidden under the floor boards in his nearly empty, poor-as-a-church-mouse room are incredibly moving. He’s got room and board, but very little else.Pinching pennys is hardly describing the self-deprivation that Nobbs has subjected him/herself to all her hard-scrabble life.

Asked to share a room with a gangly, six foot-something house painter by his landlady/boss(the magnificently florid Pauline Collins), Nobbs is terror-stricken at sharing his bed, fearing that this huge, butch man, may find out his “secret.” And inevitably, that happens. In such close, poverty-stricken quarters how could it not?

I don’t want to reveal any more except to applaud the flamboyant star turn of Janet McTeer, who let’s just say, befriends the poor, frightened Nobbs. Nobbs then reveals to his new-found friend and his equally friendly wife that he has fallen in love with another servant, a young woman named Rose Dawson, who is also marvelously played by the up-and-coming Mia Wasikowska.

Close does something here I’ve never seen her do before which is UNDERPLAY everything. And playing such a tense, quiet man is a very difficult task for an actress to set herself. But producer/writer Close has challenged herself on every level imaginable.

The late transvestite Warhol Superstar Candy Darling once said to me about her transgendered life, “The whole trick is in the passing.” Meaning getting away with it. Being convincing as the opposite gender. And Candy certainly was that.

I myself lived an Albert Nobbs-like existance when I was a young protegé of Candy’s, and the hardly passable Jackie Curtis. And I feel that “Albert Nobbs” really NAILS the reality of a transgender who is DESPERATELY trying to pass.

Every moment, every gesture, every vocal intonation must be believable and Glenn Close REALLY pulls this off. Some people may wonder WHY he/she is doing this. But as the film so succinctly and straightforwardly shows, living as a man and getting away with it, is infinitely worth the risk, because men, even of his/her class(working) and a servant, had a much more respectable and decent life than any woman of that time.

“Albert Nobbs” is the absolute pinnacle of Glenn Close’s long and varied career. I certainly hope the Academy will nominate her. And her superb, unforgettable portrait of the most frightened and intense of poor souls, should win her accolades everywhere. At least I hope they do.

This film totally blew me away with its’ beauty, grace and heart-break.

Kudos to Glenn Close for taking on such a risky, gender-confouding role.  Albert Nobbs is a displaced person in his own body. And its’ a tragic, heart-rending tale. It’s one of the best performances of the year in one of the best films of the year.