Rami Malek made his Cannes debut on Wednesday with Ira Sachs’ competition entry “The Man I Love,” a film that finds the Oscar-winning actor in the most well-tailored role since his portrayal of Freddie Mercury. Set in the Reagan-era New York underground, the drama follows a multidisciplinary artist dying of AIDS – a performer who, viewed from the Croisette, inevitably evokes Mercury himself. Yet Malek insists the film is less about death than life: “It took me a minute to realise it was more about life,” he said alongside his director.

The convergence of Malek’s new role with his most famous one has reignited a debate in Hollywood about the so-called Oscar curse. Analysts in Los Angeles note that winning the best-actor statuette – as Malek did for “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2019 – has often stalled or derailed careers, rather than advancing them. The pattern, observed with figures such as Hilary Swank and Halle Berry, is underlined by the very structure of “The Man I Love”: a vehicle built around Malek, designed to showcase his intensity, but which also risks trapping him in a familiar register of anguished genius.

From a European perspective, the film resonates differently. In Montreal, critics caught a nod to Québécois cinema in the opening shot – a VHS clip from André Brassard’s “Il était une fois dans l’Est,” itself a Cannes entry in 1974. That connection underscores Sachs’ ambition to weave a broader tapestry of queer artistry and memory. Meanwhile, a French competitor for the best-actor prize, “Notre Salut,” offers a more original take – a Vichy-era farce shot in the style of “The Office” – suggesting that Malek’s path to a second Palme may not be straightforward.

Forward-looking, the question is whether “The Man I Love” can lift Malek beyond the shadow of Mercury. The actor has spoken of the late Queen singer residing “in my soul” and continuing to guide him. But Sachs’ film, for all its intimacy, may end up reinforcing the comparison rather than escaping it. In a festival season where legacy and novelty collide, Malek’s performance will be judged not only on its own merits but on how far it breaks the pattern that won him his gold statuette.