“Adolescent screen turns tend to be praised for their precocious hyper-expressivity or youthful dynamism, but Wang Yuwen does something different in An Elephant Sitting Still. In the late Hu Bo’s mammoth undertaking, a darkly poetic and nearly four-hour drama about discontented residents of contemporary China, Wang’s performance is defined by a deadpan, glassy-eyed grimace that covers the actress’ face throughout the majority of her scenes. Wang’s bracing simplicity as Huang Ling, a willfully disobedient schoolgirl, helps ground some of the more sensational elements of Hu’s conception of the character—her binge-drinking mother, her illicit affair with a married high school dean—within the realm of lived experience, as felt but not always as communicated by this recessive personality. An air of forbidding detachment clings to the actress, even when Huang is voraciously gobbling up pastries or a pitifully squashed birthday cake. By refusing to react, Wang cannily plays against the expectations of her character’s arc while providing a running commentary on a particular kind of teenage experience. Maybe one day, Huang will look back on the events portrayed herein with different, more palpable feelings, but for now she can only drift through the motions of an abysmal life she loathes. Blankness is often deemed a demerit in acting, a presumed indication of a performer’s vacuity, yet Wang’s blankness reveals not the absence of thought, but its painful concealment: in a world of so much sadness, what more can the young and isolated do but suppress and subsist? When Huang eventually lashes out at those who have failed to protect her after hours of grim impassivity, it begets a moment of volcanic release that the actress has earned by closely adhering to the state of silent despair that can so easily oppress those unready to fight it.” — Matthew Eng

The 12 Best Female Film Performances of Early 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

Happy 74th birthday to Liza Minnelli!

“New York, New York, Scorsese’s splashy, cynical, and masterfully-made postwar musical, was egregiously cold-shouldered upon its release, as was the singular star turn of Liza Minnelli, doing an adoring yet galvanizing variation on Mama Judy Garland’s legendary A Star is Born role. As Francine Evans, an aspiring 1940s singer who falls under the influence of De Niro’s callous, captivating saxophonist, Minnelli is perpetually in motion, propelled by an insatiable need to please audiences and lovers alike. Minnelli is, of course, a stupendous, show-stopping singer-dancer with a walloping and finely honed talent that decidedly belongs to the bygone studio era in which her mother rose to otherworldly stardom. Minnelli’s artistic mastery is startlingly reminiscent of Garland’s yet differentiated by the pure, jubilant passion she exudes at all times when performing; has any artist ever radiated more graciousness for an audience’s gaze than Minnelli, as if the enormity of her abilities didn’t already demand our undivided attention? But, more than anything else, it’s the actress’ tough-minded, deeply-felt emotionality—culminating in an elevator descent of tremulous, heartbroken stillness—that proudly places her Francine beside Garland’s Vicki Lester, Julie Andrews’ Maria von Trapp, Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice, and Minnelli’s own Sally Bowles in the eternal pantheon of preeminent, pitch-perfect musical performances.” — Matthew Eng

The 10 Best Female Performances in Martin Scorsese Films

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“Even when her characters stand at life-altering crossroads, Emma Thompson always radiates the cool confidence of a certified genius who possesses an unshakable belief in herself and her gifts. We may sometimes doubt the sustainability of the women she plays, but we never doubt Thompson’s ability to imbue their experiences with humor, grace, and profundity. Late Night’s Katherine Newbury, a venerated comedian facing the loss of the talk show that is her lifeblood, is a role tailor-made for the sharp-witted comedic gifts that Thompson is seldom invited to utilize in her latter-day career, save for the occasional awards show presentation. Her sardonic one-liners consistently kill, but Thompson also knows that a withering, well-timed look or a purposeful pause can speak equal volumes. Yet what really distinguishes Thompson’s performance is the prickly, supercilious air that enshrouds Katherine, a byproduct of the actress’ welcome disinterest in making the character palatable or easy to root for; Thompson is too honest an interpreter to sand down the off-putting edges of this deeply flawed woman or simply heroize her last stand against the turning tides of network television. That we root for Katherine nevertheless is a natural inevitability when casting Thompson, who guarantees that Katherine’s moments of pathos, vindication, and victory will be earned and balanced out by the plausible, warts-and-all multidimensionality that is this sublime artist’s stock-in-trade.

Late Night is very much Thompson’s show, but it’s also a reminder that screenwriter and costar Mindy Kaling shines brightest when writing to her strengths, one of which is endowing often naïve, sometimes corny, and permanently genuine underdogs with worth and vitality on the page and screen. As Molly, the tokenized and exceedingly green new addition to Katherine’s all-male writers’ room, Kaling delights by leaning in to the character’s earnestness with the unabashed exuberance of a comedian who is accustomed to, say, looking like a fool or extending an awkward moment a beat or two past the normal threshold of comfort. It would be easy to play a character this painfully sincere with winking, in-on-the-joke irony—in other words, to emphasize the lie of one’s own performance. Kaling excels by doing the opposite, committing so hard to Molly’s verbal and physical faux pas that we are not only amused by the character’s wide-eyed gaucheness but duly convinced of it. Yet Kaling also knows that sweetness need never be confused for simplicity, and she emerges as a terrific proponent for this would-be heroine, giving Molly the cleverness and dignity to make us believe she could lift the dinosaur that is Katherine’s show out of a creative rut. By film’s end, Molly has proven that her ideas, smarts, and “lack of boundaries” are imperative, and her creator has persuaded us that her performative wit and pluck are qualities which the floundering American comedy should continue to harness. Kaling’s performance, like Thompson’s, suggests the tougher, more pointed, less polite satire Late Night might have been, but watching this unexpected yet inspired pair play off one another is never less than a spikily satisfying diversion.” — Matthew Eng

The 12 Best Female Film Performances of Early 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“In a conversation midway through the glossy yet frequently insightful Fosse/Verdon, Michelle Williams’ seen-it-all Gwen Verdon cozies up to Margaret Qualley’s innocent, in-over-her-head Ann Reinking and tells her that all of the philandering and incorrigible bad behavior of Bob Fosse is worth it for the career-making characters he allows them to play. Williams’ Gwen regards Qualley’s deeply affecting Ann with the fond but arch knowingness of a big sister, declining to cast her as a rival for the heart of the man they both love, perhaps knowing that his heart will always be hers no matter whose bed he resides in. But Williams, not impersonating an icon but appearing to live inside her, isn’t afraid to muddy the waters, to imprint something beyond the legend: her gleaming eyes and persuasive tongue make us keenly aware that Gwen is consoling Ann by selling her on a cycle of personal compromise and professional recompense, a form of artistic collaboration that sounds a whole lot like complicity.” — Matthew Eng

Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“To my mind, Lupita Nyong’o plays four roles in Jordan Peele’s Us: there’s Adelaide, a fretful wife, mother, and former dancer whose summer getaway to her family’s lake house doesn’t go remotely as planned; there’s Red, the identical, maniacal “tethered” person who unleashes vengeful terror on Adelaide and her family; and then there are, finally, the women Adelaide and Red are each revealed to truly be in the movie’s closing moments. A less adept actor might have buckled under the demands of a precarious assignment like this. But Nyong’o is a prodigy who appears to thrive under pressure, and what she achieves in Us is a triumph of abiding and unbounded creativity. The actress constructs Adelaide and Red with her Yale-honed discipline and assiduous attention to detail, delineating the vocal, physical, and temperamental differences between these two entities who share far more in common than we initially assume. But Nyong’o takes her dual (quadruple?) characterizations a step further by embodying the film’s central mystery through thoughtful, layered choices that actively reward close spectatorship. Peele’s concluding twist is hiding in plain sight within the brilliant choices Nyong’o makes throughout the film. Adelaide’s body language is far too studied and her verbal inflections frequently odd, almost as if she were speaking an unnatural language; this is Nyong'o’s mastery at work, drawing our attention time and time again to what makes Adelaide distinct from her kin. Just as telling are the restless, hyperaware eyes that are always goggling and glancing over her shoulder, signaling that this everyday woman has good reason to be cautious. The actress’ work as Red is equally meaningful, her eerily eccentric showmanship equaled by an enhanced consciousness that exceptionalizes this character, too, from her kind. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the croaking, spine-tingling sound of Red’s rusted voice, which makes each word sound like a necessary struggle, as if her throat was caught in a perpetual chokehold. We could spend years watching and examining these performances and never run out of new touches and nuances to relish, which is, above all, a testament to Nyong’o, a star who deserves more parts that match the sheer prodigiousness of her rare and potent talent.” — Matthew Eng

The 12 Best Female Film Performances of Early 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“A filmmaker less astute and compassionate than Matteo Garrone might have directed Marcello Fonte to play his title character in Dogman as either schlemiel or schlimazel. As Marcello, a canine groomer, single father, and part-time drug dealer in a gloomy Italian coastal village whose fate becomes entangled with that of a vicious thug, Fonte possesses a robust talent beneath his skeletal frame and furtive demeanor. He has a face that was made to be filmed and studied, distinguished by a pair of sunken eyes that convey a wide range of conflicted emotions throughout Garrone’s grim fable. Marcello’s plight could have merely been the source of cheap, ridiculing gags or holier-than-thou sermonizing, but neither Garrone nor Fonte are interested in using the character as a target for easy satire or moralization. Instead, Garrone permits his game and gifted leading man to play his role with a straightforward realism that gives dignity to a dehumanized individual. Fonte, in turn, enables Marcello’s plummet from complicit, tenderhearted everyman to cold-blooded avenger to assume a clarifying sense of tragedy, one made all the more poignant for occurring to an actual human being and not a stock character.” — Matthew Eng

The 12 Best Male Film Performances of Early 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“The performances on this list have been delivered in films as disparate as a rollicking musical drama, a horror movie in which the unspoken political implications chill the spine almost nearly as much as the images on screen, and a subdued character study about the sort of American woman who is rarely made the focus of American movies. If these performances share anything in common it is that, like the best screen acting, they have lingered in the mind of moviegoers long after the cinematic experience has come to an end.” —Matthew Eng

The 11 Best Female Film Performances of Early 2019

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade counts on cringes of recognition from viewers who have survived the specifically unbearable experience of middle school in America and actively avoid any return visits down this most mortifying of memory lanes. But actress Elsie Fisher widens Burnham’s lens by focusing on the emotional ramifications of the triumphs and setbacks encountered by her brave and beautiful Kayla. Of the many moments to cherish in this incandescent breakthrough, the one I keep returning to is the character’s staggering, wide-eyed, hyperventilating freakout over a new high school friend’s over-the-phone invitation to hang out at the mall. We talk a lot about the importance of universal stories in film. Fisher, however, tells a truly universal story all on her own, making Kayla’s development understandable to anyone who has ever shrieked with glee at realizing their world is a little less lonely than once believed.” —Matthew Eng

30 Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2018

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)

“Elizabeth Debicki delivered two faultless supporting performances this year that should, by all means, make this technically brilliant performer a household name. The more acclaimed of the two is in Widows, in which Debicki plays a Polish-American woman discovering a new sense of self under illicit circumstances to humorous, poignant, and endlessly alluring effect. Jennifer Fox’s filmic memoir The Tale, a far more difficult work to stomach than McQueen’s mainstream caper, is a reckoning with the director’s own past that showcases Debicki to equal perfection. The actress is a statuesque and self-possessed marvel as Mrs. G, the English wife of an older country doctor and a predatory temptress who routinizes, romanticizes, and normalizes the abuse of our protagonist’s 13-year-old self. Debicki threatens to incinerate the screen during a final, imagined interview that is played directly to camera and finds an unrepentant Mrs. G refusing to shoulder the blame for any perceived wrongdoing. In The Tale, the past pierces like shards of glass in a cracked mirror, and Debicki, who puts an unblinking human face to subhuman treachery, cuts deeper than anyone.” — Matthew Eng

30 Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2018

(Source: TribecaFilm.com)