In the 2011 film, The Descendants, George Clooney plays a character who must wrestle
with several trade-offs bearing on character itself. Both the acting and the
screenwriting handle the task very well. It is a pity that the actor gets a
near monopoly of the credit/attention, for the way the trade-offs are navigated
by the screenwriter is vitally important—perhaps even more so than
the acting.
The full essay is at "The Descendants."
