The Golden Trousers '09: 13 Actresses

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Whereas yesterday with the actors I was with the general consensus an awful lot with my picks, today with these here astonishing-lady-parts I am for the most part wandering pretty far off the reservation. And I love it! These are a buncha crazy broads! Gloriously so. My favorite sort. They're tying little boys to radiators, slitting kitten's throats, taking a pair of scissors to their lady-bits. They nuts! I love 'em!

Tilda Swinton, Julia - What more can I say about this performance? I've written my thoughts on it at length, oh here and here and here and here and here and here. See what I mean? If I'd been blogging back when Ellen Burstyn gave us Sarah Goldfarb in Requiem For A Dream or when Christian Bale gave us his American Psycho, then I probably would've rattled on about them the same way, and that's the company this performance of Swinton's keeps. I adore it. Worship it. Will watch it a billion times to seep myself in its every nuance. I want to have a baby just so I can lock it in a room with nothing but this movie on repeat to raise it and teach it language so I can see what sort of adult that would create.

Alison Lohman, Drag Me to Hell - The challenge that was tossed to Miss Lohman was not an easy one (that's why it's called a challenge): her character, Christine, is... what's the word? Oh right - unlikeable. Selfish. Quick to toss any and all moral quandaries into the dumpster to further her own myriad agendas at the drop of a hat. Basically, she's a female version of Ash, Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead films, just without so many off-the-cuff quips. If she's got to slit the throat of The World's Tiniest Kitten in order to save herself, well all that's gonna take is a little convincing. And Lohman makes effortless mincemeat of any reservations we might have in jumping right in alongside this gal.

Missi Pyle, Spring Breakdown - Pyle's been on the background radar for a few years now, but never have I seen her own like she got the chance to do in Breakdown. Diverting my eyes away from the central threesome of Posey Dratch and Poehler would prove a monumental task for most, but I wanted all Charlene, all the time. Drink, drink, chug, drink!!!

Ok-bin Kim, Thirst - I've watched Park's vampire-priest movie three times now and every time what I come away with is a deeper affection for Kim's tricky performance. She lets us know from the get-go that this poor girl is nobody's poor girl and that the priest Sang-hyeon has starbursts in his eyes and can't see the bitch for the trees, but once she gets all the power she didn't know she wanted... oh baby, watch out. It's a delightful derangement, watching this girl discover the unknown depths of her capability for horror.

Susanne Lothar, The White Ribbon - Michael Haneke's favorite punching bag is back for more and she suffers so wonderfully. The scene where her longtime secret lover verbally shreds her as she stares on pretty much in awe of his cruelty, her wounded eyes welling with tears, her inability to find footing in this abuse that's closed in on her out of nowhere, we watch and feel dizzy, as if the room is closing in on us too. It doesn't stop there, of course - the horrors of this horrible community accrue with a malignant consistency, and her eyes blossom in the background, knowing... things... but are they the right things? Well, they're... things. And Lothar makes us desperate to follow along with her. Haneke, the bastard, he's got other plans of course.

Abbie Cornish, Bright Star - What I said regarding Colin Firth's scene on the telephone yesterday applies here to the scene where Fanny learns of her paramour-poet John Keats' death (Spoiler? Although if you don't know that Ben Whishaw is dying the first time you look at him, you don't have yes. Eat a sandwich, man!). The sounds of grief she conjures up tear at the screen. But even before that shoulda-been-her-Oscar-clip moment Cornish works wonders with this complicated young woman, as we watch her realize with expanding breath that what's wanted from her is all she can be, at last.

Mo'Nique, Precious - I am haunted by Mo'Nique. She's been following me around, sneaking up on me, for several years now. Those eyes, alive with devilish glee, that mouth, poised like a viper ready to strike. A delightful ghost, funny and loud and preposterous. She can tell you about some shit, she can. But she took that ghost and she smashed it in the face and buried it and turned herself inside out to make Mary, a beast of a whole new sort. From frame one I didn't recognize her, and then all these horrors started slithering out, and it was something to behold. Biblical, twas.

María Onetto, The Headless Woman - She knows at the end, right? The end is the place to start, after all. When the pieces have come together. Except they haven't. Except maybe they have, for her. I don't know. She might just stand there saying that the whole time and that'd be the only thing that'd make sense. I do not know. The ellipses that is her several month existence is drawn in ever broader strokes on the lines of her face, misunderstanding, missed understanding. As goes her hair color, so goes the truth.

Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom - I've been worshiping Rachel Weisz performances for several years now - I loved her the instant she made the stacks topple over in The Mummy, glasses askew, adorable - and I've never seen her like this. She probably came closest in her role just mentioned in the Mummy films - eyes bright with an unquenchable thirst for adventure - but there's a sadness here that those films never even tried to approach; a closed off girl-woman thing that's endlessly appealing, drawing us in, delighting us with every quirky ridiculous thought that tumbles out of her mouth. This is a terrific actress at the tippy-tip top of her game, folks, playing the screen like a... like a washboard. Or perhaps a tuba.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist - When you feel yourself inching back from the screen, as if there's a very real possibility that the thing up there has every bit the power it'd take to scrape its nails through the thin fabric of the image and getcha, getcha real good, then you can be pretty certain you're in the presence of some powerhouse something. You can practically see every veiny detail of Gainsbourg knotting up her rage and grief and hate and pain on-screen, tucking it under her blouse, whittling it down to a very sharp very fine point, and picking her teeth with it, staring at you, waiting. Lars is writing in capital letters here, but Gainsbourg is painting them red.

Blanca Portillo, Broken Embraces - I was torn between which of the ladies of Embraces to love on, Blanca or Penny, but then I remembered the way Blanca chugged her gin and tonics while divulging her outrageous secrets matter-of-factly and I knew in my heart who had won.

Maya Rudolph, Away We Go - I spoke about John Krasinski's charm and warmth yesterday and that's a two-way street with this movie - a blessed heart-bursting motorway of shared affection, sentiment ricocheting off sentiment, a thirty car pile-up of love, man. Love! I watch these two stare at each other and it makes me wanna be a better starer. Maya - I can't help with her, I've gotta address her on first-name basis - dialed it way back here and tapped into a part of herself I've never seen - the wacky SNL affectations (which I adore, for the record) are gone and in their place stands this smart but unsure lady, afraid of home while desperately searching for just that same thing.

Isabelle Fuhrman, Orphan - Oh the wonders of this little lady! Whether it's seducing her papa or getting her mama locked up or hitting a nun in the face with a hammer, it's all with a twirl of her velvety ribbon dress and a skip in her step. This one's for the record books, my friends. And that last act twist that's been whispered-shouted about... it don't disappoint. Which we can thank Fuhrman for nailing like a ballerina coming down, foot on your face.
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