Let's Rank the 10 Finest Screen Performances of 2011
5. Christopher Plummer, Beginners
You'd be hard pressed to find a critic who isn't dropkicking Oscar inevitability at Christopher Plummer's touching performance in Beginners, and despite my long history as a contrarian, I'm loving the love: Plummer brings such a grace and joy to his role as Hal, a 75-year-old father who embraces his fully liberated new life as a gay man, that you'd prefer to see a movie only about his world. He approaches both his updated existence and eventual death with a bliss couched in parades and house music, and his relationship with the gorgeous Andy (Goran Visnjic) is both complex and, somehow, transparently real.
4. Michael Fassbender, Shame
Shame's greatest strength is its refusal to rationalize -- or even unpack -- the dour sexual compulsions of its protagonist, Brandon Sullivan. It's meticulously observed, but it's specifically not a cautionary tale. As Brandon, Michael Fassbender explores urban isolation and personal emptiness, a balance we glean within the film's first minute as he saunters through his apartment in the drabbest state of dishabille since, oh, Sissy Spacek's trauma in the Carrie locker room. Fassbender makes Brandon both fascinating and nothing, and the highest compliment I can pay him is that the work is both devastating and unassuming. Brandon exhibits a harrowing self-destructive streak that nearly slips off of you as the credits roll. It's not that the movie isn't raw or powerful enough; you simply believe what you saw.
3. Viola Davis, The Help
As we observe the tightest and gnarliest Best Actress race since -- gosh, the Bette Davis/Gloria Swanson/Judy Holliday matchup of 1950? -- it's impossible to overlook Viola Davis's work in the palatable, Easter-colored The Help. While Glenn Close's comeback turn in Albert Nobbs makes her the Gloria Swanson in this scenario and Meryl Streep's sweeping chutzpah as Margaret Thatcher qualify her to be the metaphorical Bette, Viola Davis is the Oscar-deserving Holliday -- the committed, vulnerable, and starkly intelligent performer who elevates her material and character beyond a saccharine underdog tale. Davis is simply so watchable as the conscientious, unappreciated housekeeper Aibileen Clark that The Help's Disney-esque plot seems to stop, about-face, and stand in attention to her whenever she's given the chance to deliver a monologue to Skeeter (Emma Stone) or confront an odious employer (Bryce Dallas Howard).
2. Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Sad that the Oscar-winning Theron is still fighting for the Best Actress tally's fifth slot when she gives the most nuanced, surprising and exciting lead performance of the year. As the bitterly delusional, deeply under-matured ghostwriter Mavis Gary, Theron showcases quite a range for remaining so monotone and callous; she's a dizzy alcoholic with a pristine self-beautification regimen, a self-consciously successful urbanite who condescends to her small-town roots, and a nightmarishly entitled and oblivious woman-child. Much has been said about the unsympathetic nature of Diablo Cody's antiheroine, but I don't hear nearly enough about the flipside of Theron's work: She is absolutely fucking funny. If the Academy wants to offer up Melissa McCarthy as a shock vote of confidence in raunchy comedy, they'd be smarter to recalibrate their criteria and vote for Theron, whose version of humor conveys all of Bridesmaids's explicitness, but with the added strengths of rancor, unflinching realism and a hefty slice of the grotesque.
1. Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
I've never understood the praise heaped on Redgrave (or Jason Robards, for that matter) for her Oscar-winning work in Julia, and I'm thrilled to say her Academy cred is revived, vivified and more in-your-face undeniable than ever thanks to her work in Coriolanus. As Fiennes's fiercely supportive and coercive mother Volumnia, Redgrave tangles with a mess of difficult, jarringly confrontational dialogue and emerges as something of a hybrid between a raging sorceress and a dehumanized beggar. While Fiennes stalks the screen with a face full of blood, the roaring Redgrave's astonishment is a ghastlier sight; in every glance she emits Lady Macbeth's dictatorial conviction and Medea's billowing madness -- all while seeming like a plausible resident of the film's CNN-gritty dystopia. Fiennes goes to great pains to format Shakespeare's work into a 2011 news ticker, but Redgrave's work is a huge and heart-pounding achievement for any age.
Follow Louis Virtel on Twitter.
Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Pages: 1 2
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
No love for Brit Marling in Another Earth? I swear this has got to be one of the most underrated movies of the last few years. The scene where she tells William Malpother the story of the Russian cosmonaut and the scene where she finally confesses are worthy of some serious award considerations. It's a shame this movie waent so far under the radar...not to mention she wrote the darn thing.
Everyone is always talking about Spacey's performance in Margin Call but I couldn't agree more. Irons takes all his natural gifts as an actor and takes them to the next level of intensity and subtlety to communicate this snake who is clearly dealing with panic under the surface. I know it's a crowded category this year but I think Irons deserves a shot at Best supporting.
Lists! I love lists! Here goes:
1. Michael Shannon - Take Shelter
So successfully pulls you into his character's headspace, by the end of the film you think the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could plausibly be outside of that storm shelter.
2. Elena Anaya - The Skin I Live In
I mean, come on! Creates deep sympathy for a character in a totally friggin' insane premise. Turns a demented mad scientist plot into the heartstring plucker.
3. Shahab Hosseini - A Separation
Peyman Moaadi as the upper-class liar seems to be getting most of the kudos, but Hosseini as the working class husband demanding respect from a legal system and class system tipped against him is the one whose really stuck with me.
4. Keira Knightley - A Dangerous Method
It's all about the lower jaw, man.
5. & 6. Octavia Spencer, The Help & Jennifer Ehle, Contagion
I'm a sucker for the less-famous actors who walk into a star-studded ensemble and not only hold their own, but walk away with the damn thing. Spencer reaches force-of-nature levels of screen presence ("I need to see you square on at all times."), while Ehle provides a magnetic serenity -- her character practically radiates goodness -- in a not-at-all showy role (she did the same thing with about 5 minutes of screentime in "Ides of March". More from her, please!)
7. Nick Nolte - Warrior
Weepy fathers meekly seeking redemption. Oh, for frick's sake...uncle!
8. Elizabeth Olsen - Martha Marcy May Marlene
9. Michael Fassbender - A Dangerous Method
Yep, he was great in everything this year, but my preference lies with the guy who brainily analyzes the reasons why he enjoys spanking Keira Knightley for pleasure.
10. Jodie Foster - Carnage
All four actors were hilarious, but Foster's anguished sobs over the breakdown of her white privilege ideals had me on the floor. I even loved her late-in-the-game dive into screeching histrionics, which most critics seemingly didn't go for: "YOUR SON IS A F____CKIIIING SNITCH!"
I dunno. I honestly have no idea how this movie even got into Sundance, let alone acquired and released. I know Searchlight likes the Marling/Cahill braintrust, but most folks I talked to could barely finish watching it.
Very pleased to see you give credit to Jeremy Irons but shame on you for not mentioning Rooney Mara!
The best performance I've seen this year -- by a mile -- is Michelle Williams in "My Week With Marilyn." Then again, the only performance I've seen from Louis' list is Albert Brooks in"Drive."
Wait, not true. I also saw Jeremy Irons in "Margin Call." I haven't changed my mind, though.
Charlotte Gainsbourg in Melancholia, man! She's basically playing the same character she played in Antichrist. Her physical performance--face and especially body--is equal to Falconetti's at moments.
Any list of 10 Finest Screen Performances of 2011 that fails to mention Elle Fanning in Super 8, Anna Paquin in Margaret (despite hers not technically being a 2011 performance), or Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene cannot be considered an authoritative, inclusive list of the finest screen performances of 2011.
I love people who love lists! Consider yourself a successful listmaker, because you have me reconsidering Jodie's work.
To be totally fair and equal, your top ten list should not even have numbers.
Just saw this and for the most part I think you nailed it…but you’re going to include Charlize in Young Adult (though she was good, given) and NOT put Mara in for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander? Come ON! Hers was a ghostly, haunting performance, hardly there one moment, savage and brutal as any woman has ever been in any movie the next. Otherwise, yeah, great list.
I saw A Dangerous Method recently and Keira Knightley was brilliant in a very risky role.
I can't believe she is being snubbed for this performance. It's also a shame that Kirsten is getting no love nor Ralph.
I just saw "Young Adult" and I completely agree about Charlize Theron's performance: it's wonderful. The Oscars need to give two lead-acting prizes to women next year and just forget about the men.
Hello there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
So, this device has become the most sought-after product, contains a rechargeable battery.
And the third level, the highest, when the diode vaporizer oil becomes green, which means upon this signal,
conquer. There are many variants of the liquid Well It´s really funny for me.
If the balloon is filled, punctured with a few friends or on e-cig user forums for reputable brands.