The Indie Voice:
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood was only titled such because its original title, 12 Years, was too close to 12 Years a Slave. I think it’s an unfortunate title, actually, because it makes you think that the entire film concerns the boy (Ellar Salmon). But the heart of the story is in the ways that the mother (Arquette) and separated father (Ethan Hawke) raise their children through divergent stabs at stability.
Most of the parenting falls onto Arquette. Her decisions dictate where they live. When the boy leaves her nest it’s the only time we see her crumble. She realizes that she has to come up with her own individual motivations. Boyhood is only a few minutes from being Motherhood. That we would even consider that title’s malleability is a testament to Arquette, who most certainly is a lead actor in the film.
Jessica Chastain – Perhaps she made you cry as the adult version of Matthew McConaughey’s daughter in Interstellar. ButThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Miss Julie, and A Most Violent Year were where she left her biggest performance scratches. Crying in Julie, desiring to vanish and start anew in Rigby, and dammit just wanting to man-up and shoot an intruder in Violent Year. Add some Interstellar math equations and Chastain is officially the believable everywoman.
Marion Cotillard – The Immigrant played at Cannes 2013, and Two Days, One Night played at Cannes 2014, but they were both released in the USA this year, which made some critic groups, like the New York Critics Choice Awards, bundle these two films together for Cotillard’s acting laurels.
The films actually have a little more in common than meets the eye: both Ewa and Sandra, in two different centuries, have to fight to work in an overcrowded workforce. But, although the filmmakers (James Gray for The Immigrant and the Dardenne Brothers for Two Days), focus on her evocative eyes, Cotillard’s performances couldn’t be any more different in the spirit of her characters. One has pluck, the other lacks it. In The Immigrant, Cotillard is a woman who grabs a knife when she feels threatened. In Two Days, One Night sticking up for herself is the hardest thing she can do.
Essie Davis – Horror movie performances don’t often receive much notice. But The Babadook thinks that, if it wasn’t for obligation, parenting a child that you do not want to have in your life would perhaps be the most horrifying human experience. To communicate this, in between visits from the titular boogeyman, Davis has to vacillate from unforgiving, to tender, to pissed off, to genuinely terrified.
To get there, Davis was directed by Jennifer Kent, a former actress herself. Together they made the best horror film of 2014.
Anne Dorval – We got such a wide variety of moms this year, which is fantastic because too often actresses are discarded in their 40s. Dorval is the cool mom in Mommy. She struggles to provide. She struggles to set boundaries. She allows things to get a little too Oedipal. And she, unlike Davis in The Babadook, actually could legally abandon her child to be taken care of by the State.
Dorval played Xavier Dolan’s mother in Dolan’s first film, I Killed My Mother, and although the films aren’t linked in a natural way, you can’t help but think that Dolan is giving Dorval the parental rebuttal: raising a boy with raging hormones is very difficult.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Mbatha-Raw was the romantic lead in two disadvantaged stories in 2014. In Belle she played a mixed race young woman who, though raised within a naval admiral’s rich family, is not allowed to partake in all of 18th century Britain’s splendors due to the color of her skin. In Beyond the Lights she played a pop-star in a deeply misogynist culture. Lights was written about in more length in our “sexiest movie of 2014” discussion, but Mbatha-Raw deserves an additional highlight for her breakout 2014.
Related: The Sexiest Movie of 2014
Elisabeth Moss – Moss had the difficult task of playing two people in The One I Love who needed to be similar enough in vocal tone, but different enough in facial expressions to confuse both her husband (Mark Duplass) and the audience. Duplass had to do the same feat for most of the film, and they have great chemistry, but because the perspective of the film is from the husband’s point of view, she must do it until the final fade to black. And Moss is entirely convincing. In a double whammy of indie films, Moss also has to put up with Jason Schwartzman’s proverbial stick in the mud in Listen Up, Philip.
Teyonah Parris and Tessa Thompson – When there is racial unrest at a fictional northeastern liberal arts college, those that want change turn to Sam White (Thompson), a polemic documentarian. And when the nation wants someone’s viewpoint on that unrest, television decides to get that from Coco (Parris), a middle ground YouTube commentator, because they’re not in the business of selling Angela Davis. Parris and Thompson are a terrific double team in Dear White People. One is a desired leader, and the other is the power-pyramid-accepted mild rebuttal. The campus and the media attempt to keep ’em separate, competitive and unaligned. They both need to maintain the status quo.
Rene Russo – It may not appear so, but Russo is more conflicted than Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal ‘s Lou Bloom has a blind ambition. He wants to be the best at something. Russo’s Nina is rented ambition. She’s on a year-to-year job in a field of television journalism that favors aging men; she lacks health benefits, and her goals are short term: good ratings might buy her more time. When Bloom courts her and propositions a relationship, it’s a reminder to her that there are times that she can still say, “no.”
Jenny Slate – Thinking of something in a will I regret this? scenario is not a road to go down alone. That’s what Donna Stern (Slate) learns when contemplating getting an abortion in Obvious Child. Her friend had one. Her mother even had one. With no regrets. Abortions are like life: you have to be sure to have no regrets. And as a comedian, that means Donna also has to learn to fall down, with no regrets. Penis and poop jokes are only funny for so long. Slate is winning as Donna. She’s a pal you’d like to have.
The Big Movies:
Emily Blunt – Emily Blunt kicks ass in Edge of Tomorrow, and she also saves Tom Cruise’s ass, again and again. Blunt has played a capable second fiddle in two of the best recent sci-fis, Tomorrow and Looper, and perhaps that I-can-take-care-of-myself attitude will eventually lead to a top peg starrer, a la Scarlett Johansson with Lucy. Blunt is certainly ready. She gets to repeatedly kill and revive Tom Cruise to prove a thesis. But with a smile, of course.
Ah, that Blunt smile. It’s on display in Into the Woods, too. And songs also emerge from her mouth. Is there anything Blunt can’t kick ass at?
Jennifer Lawrence – Let’s recap how well the Lawrence-led Hunger Games franchise has been doing. It’s the first franchise in history to have the first three films open above $120 million. In one weekend Mockingjay – Part 1 earned $275 million worldwide.
It used to be that death and taxes were the only things you could count on in life. Now it’s Katniss and Transformers. At least Lawrence gives the Games a human draw.
Rosamund Pike – You can’t have a year of varied female characters without having one popular one that throws many for a loop. Is Gone Girl feminist? Misogynist? A satire of marriage? Was Amy ever really a cool girl? Was she ever even Amy? Perhaps the best thing about Gone Girl is that almost everyone has seen it, but some still aren’t comfortable talking openly about it. That laurel we have to leave at the blood stained feet of Pike. Bravo.
Shailene Woodley – Okay, let’s get to the real down and dirty, depressing truth. The real reason why everyone says this is a “weak year” for Best Actress is that only 15% of films that are made have a main female protagonist. Until that changes, every year is going to be “weak.” It might get stronger if critics and guilds highlight broader work with actual female leads, not doting wives.
Of that aforementioned low percent, Woodley led three films in 2014: The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent and White Bird in a Blizzard. Two of those films made barrels of money. The other, Woodley took a risk. Just before she started her ascent to the young adult pedestal she played an orgasming teenager in Blizzard. Woodley has guts, she tears at your guts with her tears, she should be rewarded for wringing out the most snot from audiences this year in Stars. All three of these films come from her character’s point of view, and she decides whether or not to be with someone.
A Few Big Ones to Come:
Now that we let that depressing stat out of the bag (seriously, just look at how many talented women were on this list, and we hadn’t even gotten to Felicity Jones, Juliette Binoche, Penelope Cruz, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, Rooney Mara, Greta Gerwig … you get the point), allow us to highlight a few films that will be coming in 2015 that tell a story directly from the lead female character’s perspective.
These could be huge. They could be great. They feature a female lead front and center, and a distributor that has already put up the dough to push it.
Dark Places – Gone Girl did very well with audiences. It stayed in the top ten for weeks. But despite having “Girl” in the title, that film was primarily told from the viewpoint of Nick (Ben Affleck). Since the book was such a smashing success, its author Gillian Flynn has had all her work plucked to be filmed. But where Dark Places differs from Gone Girl is that it doesn’t have a split protagonist. This is Libby’s (Charlize Theron) story.
It also doesn’t have Fincher at the helm, instead Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Sarah’s Key). The fact that distributor A24 picked Dark Places up is good news about quality (the indie distributor has released Spring Breakers, Under the Skin, The Rover, The Bling Ring, and A Most Violent Year), but it also means that marketing will dwarf in comparison to what Fox gave Gone Girl.
Not to sound too grim in projections. The story itself is grim: a woman (Theron) who survived the murder of her family is forced to confront the crime by an underground organization that takes on unsolved crimes. Theron is always exciting. We have high hopes for this.
Joy – Finally David O. Russell gives Jennifer Lawrence the main protagonist role. She isn’t someone’s muse, or potential savior by dating her. She isn’t someone’s stay at home wife who doesn’t know how to operate a microwave. She is Joy Mangano and she is the single mother who invented the Miracle Mop. This has Fox behind it, with a Christmas Day release, and support from Bradley Cooper (of course), Robert De Niro and Edgar Ramirez. But again, this is Lawrence’s movie. And it was scripted by a Bridesmaids scribe.
Trainwreck – Amy Schumer. If you don’t know her name, prepare to get familiar in 2015. She’s the lead of Judd Apatow’s next comedy. But before that airs, she’ll have hosted the MTV Movie Awards. She has her own Comedy Central program called “Inside Amy Schumer” that some of us have to catch up on.
Recently, Schumer gave a fantastic speech about the specific qualities she loved about Tilda Swinton, and though it seemed impossible, it might actually be that she loves her more than we do. And Tilda fucking Swinton is in this movie. So is Brie Larson. And so is Daniel Radcliffe and Bill Hader. Also Marisa Tomei and Randall Park (who you’re about to finally be able to see play Kim Jung-Un this Christmas in The Interview). What is Trainwreck? A comedy. With a plot that’s hush-hash and a cast that that’s awesome with a July release date and I’m thinking that’s all we need to know.
Bring it on 2015. Show us how strong our actresses are. Again.
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
