The Worst Acting Performances Of 2023

In 2019, Awkwafina impressed with her incredible work in «The Farewell.» With this performance, it seemed like she had opened up new exciting doors for where she could go in her acting career. Unfortunately, the 2023 film «Renfield» is a tragic demonstration of Awkwafina failing to utilize her talents as well as she could. Playing the determined New Orleans cop Rebecca, her «Renfield» performance suffers from director Chris McKay’s scattered approach to the entire movie’s tone. While other filmmakers — like Sam Raimi — can effortlessly juggle gags and bloodshed, McKay struggles to balance broad jokes with grisly Dracula-based carnage.

As a byproduct of this problem, Awkwafina’s performance as Rebecca is often quite frustrating, with the performer going too big in her more comedic scenes. However, she’s also got a weirdly insincere quality in the supposedly tender moments when Rebecca is talking about, or to, her sister. She just doesn’t click at all in «Renfield» and her performance represents the entire project’s weird tonal issues. Unsurprisingly, major reviews for «Renfield» often highlighted Awkwafina as a key defect in the overall movie, with Variety calling her performance, «blunt and overstated.»