After seeing In America this past weekend (a film Cinecultist will discuss further in a later post but for now: Good. Go see it.), and reveling in the beauty that is Samantha Morton on screen, CC has been thinking about about the list. This is the list we refer to as Actors We Could Watch Reading The Phonebook. Meaning that these actors bring a grace and fascination to the most banal activities on screen and whose charisma carries the audience through the quiet moments of their films. We've come to think of this list as containing three women actors, two French and one English: Morton, Virginie Ledoyen and Isabelle Huppert.
Sure all of these actors have made some lame movies, we know about how bad the Beach and Minority Report and Merci pour le chocolate can be AND YET, CC still finds these actors fascinating even in these environs of lameness. May we recommend instead of playa hating as any kind of best of list like this inspires, watching over and over their good roles such as the Single Girl, Jeanne and the Perfect Guy, 8 Women (with Ledoyen and Huppert!), Morvern Callar, Sweet and Lowdown and the Piano Teacher. There's more to these women's flick of a wrist in these performances than all of the setting gnawing of every other histronic prima dona you can name.
Runners Up and pretty damn good in their own right, if not on The List: Meryl Streep, Emily Watson.
Posted by karen at February 4, 2004 8:32 AM