BEST ACTRESS
It's a strange kind of paradox, really, that Dame Judi's best work in years- in fact, I can't really remember a better performance from her- comes in a part that was so perfect in the book but becomes so messed up on film. Dench works wonders, yes, else she wouldn't be here, but the film doesn't do her any favours- where Barbara Covett in novel form was a rounded, complex, dangerous but pitiful human being, Barbara Covett on film is little more than a villanous, nasty lesbian predator. Dench mines like a trooper to inject some of the book-Barbara's sympathetic qualities into her character- the look in the mirror, the hidden looks of weariness (see my graphic)- but the film around her wants you to hate her, despise her, look at her in disgust. Thanks to Judi, though, you don't- your looks of disgust are instead directed to the film itself.
No one really seems to know what
INLAND EMPIRE is all about, even David Lynch himself, and no one really needs to- but what they do need is an emotional hook, because, like it or lump it, you're not really going to be interested in a film if it doesn't affect you in some way, and for all its unweildy imagery and strange metaphors and circular, ovaline or star-shaped (I don't know!) narrative threads, this is what
INLAND EMPIRE does. Dern is given the enormous task of making some kind of coherence of about five different characters, none of whom are given much more than a name, and Dern must not only carve out distinct personalities but thread them all together, for naturally these women are all extensions of each other, in whatever abstract Lynchian way. Dern is both a cypher and an abstraction, a way in to the film and a barrier to understanding it. But, most importantly, she is transfixing, committed, and fiercely emotional.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu may be about, well, Mr. Lazarescu, but quite unexpectedly, both to her and the audience, Gheorghiu's ambulance worker gradually, naturally becomes the driving force of this movie, and not just in the sense that she pushes Mr. Lazarescu around on a gurney. Gheorghiu craftily portrays Mioara's transition from disinterested, weary worker to concerned, involved companion, slowly adjusting her body language to show increased concern for the man she is ferrying around, and, ever so slowly, becoming the heroine of the film. Without Mioara, Mr. Lazarescu would be dead even sooner than he ends up being; with Gheorghiu, Mioara would have been a pale, dull shadow.
2005's
The Exorcism of Emily Rose saw newcomer Jennifer Carpenter give a fiercely committed performance in much the same role as Huller has here; however, where Carpenter's sidelined character was little more than a devil-riddled woman with extraordinary limb suppleness, Huller has the harder task of creating an actual person, since Michaela, though she does eventually let rip with virulent screams, is simply a young woman, a religious, willowy figure, a person who, for whatever reason, seems to be a vessel for the devil. Michaela is not, unlike Carpenter's character, centered in a philosophical court debate, but one between reality and psychology- Michaela does not know why these things are happening to her, but she must struggle valiantly on with the rest of her life while they exist.
The best for last, perhaps. I know I haven't been picking first, second or third prizes in these awards, but Julia Jentsch's performance has been on this list for so long, so unchallenged and so supreme, that it feels only fair to call her out as the best. Taking the titular role as Sophie Scholl, persecuted member of the Anti-Nazi White Rose movement, Jentsch does not have confusing arcs to ace like Laura Dern, or reflective moments in a mirror like Judi Dench, but she effortlessly creates a full, human and beautiful figure anyway, perfectly attuned to the film's low-key tone- this is not a film that is pulling any large punches, simply a picture of a historical moment, a tribute, almost, to this valiant young woman, and Jentsch makes her not a saint, but a woman- too committed, perhaps, to her ideals, too protective for her own good, too stubborn and proud- but in recognising these weaknesses of character, Jentsch also reveals what made Sophie Scholl the heroine she was.
Apologies to: Actress was not so crowded as its supporting counterpart, but nevertheless six ladies made it particularly different slicing this crowd in two: Penelope Cruz's strength of character in
Volver; Kirsten Dunst's charmingly naive
Marie Antoinette; Sienna Miller's impersonation of the saddeningly superficial Edie Sedgwick in
Factory Girl; Qi Shu's trio of parts in
Three Times; Naomi Watts' bourgeosie-in-China in
The Painted Veil; and young Zoe Weizenbaum's sympathetic attempts to be an adult in
12 and Holding.
The first of the double-bill is one of the most trumpeted foreign films of the year- La Vie En Rose is a lavish, expansive biopic of chanteuse Edith Piaf, with an Oscar-courting central turn from Marion Cotillard at its centre. The biopic has become the genre-du-choix for awards-seeking actors in recent years (see Monster, Iris, Capote, The Aviator, Finding Neverland...) and the musical sub-genre of the biopic is a particular favourite, with both Jamie Foxx and Reese Witherspoon winning their Oscars for their turns as Ray Charles in Ray and June Carter in Walk the Line respectively. And, sadly, though it may be a French film, La Vie En Rose does nothing to break away from the conventions they've set up in this flourishing genre. Granted, many of the elements are the same- troubled childhoods, drug addictions- but you might expect a production free of Hollywood to try something different. But La Vie En Rose is as movie as a movie can be, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. There's no depth here- the entire life of Edith Piaf has been shoehorned into the film, though large gaps (Piaf's involvement in the WWII Resistance being entirely ignored) float around aimlessly. But there's still so much going on that director Olivier Dahan rushes through most of it- and so, when the young Edith wails that she wants to stay at the circus, we have no idea why, our only experience of that being her being yelled at by a performer. We frown in confusion when suddenly, in a news scene, Edith suddenly has a husband. We laugh when a lost child is crowbarred into the plot in the last half hour. The other main problem, being, as you may have heard, that Dahan seems to have shuffled the script before filming, because La Vie En Rose jumps all over the place for absolutely no reason. Yes, Walk the Line opened at Johnny Cash's famous Folsom Prison performance, but from there it went back to the beginning and progressed in an understandable linear direction. Yes, Iris jumped back and forward, but the dual threads of young Iris growing and old Iris declining also went in a linear way, and the contrast worked to highlight the character of Iris. But La Vie En Rose's slapdash plotting serves no purpose whatsoever, and even works to the film's detriment- it slices apart what looks like a competant performance from Marion Cotillard, highlighting the actress's use of wigs and make-up much more than a linear progression would have. It didn't surprise me when I thought back over the film to find that the film's most successful moments occured when emotion had been built up over a gradual progression of events- most obviously, the powerful moment when Edith breaks down on hearing her boxer lover Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) has been killed, is affecting precisely because the film has invested time in their relationship, showing their flirtation and romance uninterrupted by flashbacks/forwards. There's some good stuff within La Vie En Rose- the sets, particularly in the childhood sections, are strikingly realistic; Emmanuelle Seigner is superb as Edith's childhood carer Titine; and, naturally, the music is beautiful. But it's symbolic to note that when Non, je ne regrette rien closes out the film, it's the song, not the handling of it, that brings tears to the eyes. You'd learn more about Edith Piaf from reading a book. Grade: C-
Tell No One really couldn't be a more different story. From it's genre- thriller- to it's modern setting, this is as far from the fantastical world of La Vie En Rose as you can get. Which one is the true story again? When our hero, Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet), incidentally causes a car crash on his breathtaking run from the police, it's entirely surprising, realistic, and unglamourous. Said chase is probably the culmination of the film's slow-burning grip on it's audience, ending with a moment that would be hilarious if you weren't so burnt out. Adapted from the book by American novelist Harlan Coben, Tell No One has been craftily adapted by by actor-writer-director Guillaume Canet (apparently he was the heartthrob of The Beach, which I hated, but he also gives himself Tell No One's most despicable part- a respectable move). A enigmatic plot is the film's core, adorned by excellent performances from the likes of Nathalie Baye, Kristin Scott Thomas (entirely integrated, by the way), and Marie Josee-Croze, filmed stylishly yet unflashily. Perhaps the film does suffer from a rather too blatant exposition of its plot at the end- it's all done in bugged monologue- but this is still an exciting, Bourne-like (that's a very good thing, if you didn't know) thriller that deserves a wider audience. Grade: B+
