Actress of the Month: ANNETTE BENING (May 2023)

[acclaimedclose]

Please consider The Grifters…
she’s also kind of a co-lead?

[David Giancarlo]

I couldn’t defend In Dreams, but the vindication and ascension of The Face of Love (Posin, 2013) STARTS NOW.

Back in 2013, this piqued my interest because of its cast, but when the reviews were so mixed, my interest waned. Later, my interest increased again when I saw Miguel Marías put in in his Top 8 of films he had seen in 2015: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2016/...2015-part-4/#3

Hm. Marías is right, this is a great film. And I suspect his reasons to love it are exactly the same as the ones that led some critics to call its direction “bland” back in 2013 (although it had some fans then too, like Justin Chang): an austere, very classic (and classy) direction that puts the focus on the serene examination of the characters’ turmoil, without increasing the hysteria or attracting attention to the direction itself.

It's kind of an attempt (and a very sound one) to rationalize what would happen if the very overused premise of the appearance of a doppelganger of the beloved and departed one, actually happened. Of course there’s Vertigo, but a long time before Vertigo there was the novella Bruges, la morte and its numerous spawn (from the adaptation by Yevgeni Bauer in 1915, “Daydreams”, to more apocryphal ones like Laura or the 1956 Argentinean film Beyond Oblivion… So yes, there’s a long line of stories that have used this doppelganger motif to dive into the surreal, the dreamy and the openly (and unbridled) melodramatic. Posin acknowledges the lineage (there’s an open nod to Vertigo but seems to be saying “Ok, what if it actually happened, what if us, rational, 21st century people, were confronted by this kind of appearance”. And “confront” he does, and the very solid screenplay and serene direction do a very credible examination of how we would handle that, beyond the romantic reveries our imaginations have conceived from that premise. The result is still a melodrama, sure, but a Stahl-esque one ( @francesco-natale , @David Giancarlo ), one in which a far-fetched premise is toned down through style and rigorous writing to really imagine real human emotions and thoughts. And, that way, it not only portrays, but also elicits emotions and thoughts: it’s moving and thought-provoking, and leaves a lingering question: don’t we ALWAYS fall in love with someone mostly because they remind us of something or someone else, to an extent?

Of course, such a goal (portraying real, relatable human emotions under a far-fetched premise) could never be achieved without superb actors going through those emotions and expressing them, and yes, this is an absolute peak for Bening, with one of the most difficult characters she’s ever had. Even the critics who didn’t like the film (and very smart ones) acknowledged this and heaped great praise upon her:






I really think this is an essential and awards-worthy Bening performance. It had me thinking “Ok, how do you play THAT, how do you imagine these feelings, and express them with realism, considering how unrealistic the set up is!?!?” And yet she does, and with piercing intensity. Both in the palpable bitterness of her initial scenes, and in the deluded joy of later, when you can tell. Looking at her eyes, that at first she knows she’s fooling herself, and towards the end she’s forgotten she was deluding herself and is losing the grasp on reality.

Even before you privately told me about seeing this or tagging me in this post, I had already been planning to watch this again, when I saw it come up in my suggestions on Prime. And so I've been really excited to see this again, and finally got around to it tonight.

And, OMG.



It's fucking amazing.

The 2013 vintage has aged beautifully: it looks, smells and tastes even better now in 2023, especially now that my palate for this style of melodrama has refined, and I don't think there is a better example this century of a pitch perfect DGia melodrama. Yes, there are beautiful aromas of Vertigo and Beyond Oblivion (did I know that you have seen this? ) doppelganger motif on the nose, with notes of contemporary post-Julieta Almodóvar and classical Stahl influences, and a bit of In the Mood for Love, Magnificent Obsession and Scattered Clouds on the finish (in terms of of the guilt of falling in love with someone so closely associated to memories and pain). If this same story had been set in the 50s, starring Julianne Moore, and directed by Todd Haynes, you cannot tell me that this would not already be universally received by AW as a modern masterpiece.

I've usually always really, really liked or loved every Annette Bening performance that I've seen, but for some reason, I've never considered her as one of the goddesses in my pantheon. But after seeing The Face of Love again, reading through this thread, and reflecting on her performances in Valmont, American Beauty (LOL, how many times a week do I tell myself "I will sell this house today?" ), The Grifters, 20th Century Women, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, etc, this seems like a huge oversight and mistake. This level of work is truly GOAT material.

Now I have to decide if I'm going to put Valmont or The Face of Love at #1, ugh. And I'm also planning to watch Mother and Child again hopefully before this month is over!

[McTeague]

YAAAASSSSS.

It is, indeed, a very DGia film! Because, while it's restrained, the restraint is only formal, not plot-related. In terms of plotting, it goes full-time with its premise and takes it to its last consequences. But the form challenges us to look at it rationally, and wonder how we would feel, what we would do. It's so Stahl-esque!

[Solarie]

I loved her in 'Running with Scissors'. This was such a fun, neurotic character for her to play. It always reminded me a little bit of her in 'American Beauty'.

[GeorgeEastman]

Open Range (Costner, 2003)
Totally non-essential, a love interest anyone could play and impossible role to be more than fine. Found it more dull than I anticipated too. Duvall had a few great moments tho.

[McTeague]

Open Range (Costner, 2003)
Totally non-essential, a love interest anyone could play and impossible role to be more than fine. Found it more dull than I anticipated too. Duvall had a few great moments tho.

Hmmm. I actually think it’s a rather different “love interest” role. Mind you, still a “love interest” role and not close to the best roles Bening has had, but also not close to the more generic love interests in Hollywood movies: she has an unusual balance between independent/feisty/resolute and sweet/proper. She feels like a woman of her time (doesn’t remotely make “improper” advances towards the man she likes and waits for him to do the courtship, closes the door when she notices him looking at her, is still a homebound woman…) but with ideas and a personality of her own (not closed to romance despite being 50, not your typical spinster, able to confront people physically and dialectically…); and of course her being 50 and close to the leading man’s age, despite the leading man being still a heartthrob, already sets her apart from 99% of the love-interest roles.

I also think it’s a special role in the context of Bening’s filmography. Among all the bigger-than-life divas, the femme-fatales and the neurotic mothers-from-hell, to me it was a pleasant surprise seeing her doing something so lovely, sweet and warm (and of course, doing it to well).

[Cinesnatch]

In late Spring of 2015, it was announced that Bening was cast opposite Brian Dennehy and Saoirse Ronan in The Seagull with Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) as director. It would be her first juicy role since The Face of Love four years earlier. Then, like clockwork, she was cast in Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, which turned out to be one of those films cinephiles didn’t realise they needed until it came out (or, until they actually saw it years later). And, THEN, just a year later, she was cast as Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. All striking performances in quick succession. In all three films, she played mothers negotiating relationships with younger men (two of them actors; all three smokers, lol). From there, the characters (and performances) vastly diverged. Filmed in Arrow Park, New York, and teaming Bening with one of her heroes, the release of The Seagull (2018) was delayed a good three years after filming.

“It’s the wonderful sweet spot between the pathos and the humour,” Bening shared in promotion for the movie. That, to me, reflects Bening’s wheelhouse and one of her main selling points as an actor. Ask any actor and they’ll tell you comedy is harder than drama. Bening isn’t particularly known for specifically being a “comedic” or “dramatic” actor. Most of her roles are technically in movies considered to be “dramas,” yet, in role after role, she masterfully delves into the grey area between the two genres in often surprising and delicious ways. Her role as Irina in Chekov’s The Seagull is no exception. She played the role, amongst other Chekov roles she has performed on stage, in her early 20s. This was the first time she was helping to bring the Russian playwright to life on film.

Imagine her Julia Lambert. But, instead of learning any lessons or breaking free from the shackles of being an ageing actress, she finds security in lies. Imagine a Julia who, instead of having a healthy relationship with her young adult son, she chastises him for chasing his dreams. Irina, like Julia, may be a seasoned successful actress and mother in a relationship with a younger man (who has also taken up with a younger woman), but she is also a more insecure woman. Julia enacts revenge by using her wits and talent to retain her professional status and pride. The more cynical and weathered Irina, on the other hand, resigns herself to her infidel partner. She doesn’t care to be alone, even if that means compromising her standards. She carries on and accepts being used for her fame and status in exchange for the consistent fondness of her paramour. Her bitterness has created a cruelty she enacts on her son.

“Konstantin, Konstantin ..” Irina shouts out in a concerned, but exasperated tone. Just before, we watched the character sneak in covert support of her fledging artist son. She certainly isn’t mother-of-the-year but, but she also doesn’t have ice running through her veins. “Boris, Boris,” she later cries out later. She is more direct, demanding, and desperate. Her and her son are trapped in a cyclical world. She holds onto whatever she has by whatever means whenever she begins to see it fall through her fingers. And, probably to no one’s surprise here, Bening dares you to follow Irina’s journey and not be interested in where she goes. I think McTeague’s post and quote from David Edelstein perfectly summed up Bening’s work in The Seagull. And it was echoed in the Hollywood Reporter, citing her performance as, "another triumph … Bening makes her character fully sympathetic even when cruelly insulting her aspiring playwright son Konstantin.” Michael O’Sullivan (Washington Post) agrees with McTeague’s epiphany of how how much her casting made sense, calling her performance, “masterful … As Irina, Bening shines in a role — by turns needy, nurturing and nasty — that she seems to have been destined to play.” Mike LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle) agreed with him: “whatever you’re picturing when you imagine Bening as Arkadina — she’s all that, but better.”

Many other critics weighed in and her performance was well admired considering the seemingly silent reception come awards season. The Guardian called her “outstanding.” Bazaar called her “ridiculously good.” New York Times called her “superb.” CineVue wrote she gave a “pitch-perfect performance.” ScreenDaily insisted, “at the top of her game … steals the show.” AP News referred to her as “funny and broken at once, perfectly poised in that Chekhovian limbo.” The Village Voice thought, “Bening proves commanding, heartbreaking, and admirably unsentimental in her portrayal.” And Dana Schwartz (EW) best summed up despite the collective agreement of the film’s shortcomings, “The true magic of the film lies in its performances. Bening is the best she’s ever been … it would be worth watching the film for Bening’s performance alone, as an hour-and-a-half actor showcase.”

For my research this month, I’ve been looking up pull-quotes and have been limited by time, paywalls, and dead-end links from MetaCritic and RottenTomatoes. I was actually shocked by the disparity between critical accolades Bening was given in juxtaposition to award recognition for The Seagull. Perhaps it was the release month of May and the fact that few people saw it. Or maybe SPC was too busy with The Wife that year. But, those who waxed poetic about Bening when The Seagull came out, completely forgot about her by end-of-year awards. Second-tier critic groups can sometimes be void of independent thought and are often distracted by shiny new things. Fittingly enough, the only group that cited her was in the home country of McTeague, the Sant Jordi Awards, who, along with Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, gave her the win (along with Vicky Krieps for Phantom Thread) for Best Actress in a Foreign Film.

The way she holds the camera is just mesmerising:

For posterity, here is the AW News Thread for the film.

[McTeague]

I was going to CLAIM for your next write-up!

[volition]

The Face of Love - whoa, major Julieta vibes from this one. I would have never even thought to watch this, so thanks to everyone for their appraisals thus far. How lushly expressive and emotive these frames are. It was quite overwhelming actually at the beginning and end - at some point in the middle I felt the magic waning a bit, but with such a short length, it’s not really a problem.

Bening is spellbinding, modulating transcendental awe with realistic, genuine humanity. The way she is led by excitement at the start and not just curiosity, almost-rational, only for this to morph into self-delusion so asphyxiating she stops even trying to be careful - obliterating any trace of the analytic gaze she begins with. It feels unfair to say, as this is not the sort of role she is known for, but I would say this is pretty definitively her best performance (Valmont and 20th Century Women still to be seen, however).

It’s making it very hard to choose a personal winner for the year, between Bening, Streep in August: Osage County, Huppert in Abuse of Weakness, and Adams in American Hustle - performances I’d place among the best of all of those very talented actresses.

GREAT recommendation!

[McTeague]

The Face of Love - whoa, major Julieta vibes from this one. I would have never even thought to watch this, so thanks to everyone for their appraisals thus far. How lushly expressive and emotive these frames are. It was quite overwhelming actually at the beginning and end - at some point in the middle I felt the magic waning a bit, but with such a short length, it’s not really a problem.

Bening is spellbinding, modulating transcendental awe with realistic, genuine humanity. The way she is led by excitement at the start and not just curiosity, almost-rational, only for this to morph into self-delusion so asphyxiating she stops even trying to be careful - obliterating any trace of the analytic gaze she begins with. It feels unfair to say, as this is not the sort of role she is known for, but I would say this is pretty definitively her best performance (Valmont and 20th Century Women still to be seen, however).

It’s making it very hard to choose a personal winner for the year, between Bening, Streep in August: Osage County, Huppert in Abuse of Weakness, and Adams in American Hustle - performances I’d place among the best of all of those very talented actresses.

GREAT recommendation!

[android]

Where were you all in 2013?

[McTeague]

Finally saw one of my biggest blind spots, Running with Scissors.

I’m frankly amazed and a little shocked, this may be her rawest, darkest and fiercest performance, it’s a pity it’s in such unbalanced film that’s clearly beneath the level of its acting (for once, though, I’ll say Paltrow isn’t good, as she doesn’t find the heart behind the caricature, except in one scene, but everyone else is either terrific or at least competent).

But Bening is not only MVP, but truly astonishing, and I didn’t expect her to go to such dark places in this movie, I thought it would be just a more unhinged Carolyn Burnham, but it’s more than that. Many moments are funny ( @Cinesnatch , I loved what you said about how Bening hasn’t done much comedy, and yet she injects so much humor in many of her roles that they often feel like borderline comedic performances); but many others are dark as hell, especially when she’s flatly rejecting other people’s begging for her love (her son) or for some non-selfish action on her part (when Clayburgh asks her to not see her husband anymore). It’s like she goes to a place where she’s not oblivious, she just consciously wants to be oblivious, inventing excuses to remain selfish (“I’ve been oppressed all my life, I’m not gonna be oppressed anymore”). That you can notice this subtle difference (between being oblivious and consciously trying to be oblivious), in the determination of her glance, is simply a jaw-dropping feat of acting. Later on, when Deidre is already mad, in the clinical sense, it’s even darker and sadder, her eyes are absent yet you still somewhere deep down she feels she’s kind of put herself in that situation so to escape what would normally be her responsibility and obligations towards other people.

Bening doesn’t court the audience’s sympathy (not even when she plays something for laughs), but still calls for a degree of understanding of her character. Not to be controversial, but to me it’s very important the difference between a performance like this one and a performance like Blanchett’s in Blue Jasmine. In the later, you feel like Blanchett (and Allen, in the screenplay) have judged the character and are only playing the deluded, unhinged aspects; in Bening’s performance of an equally (or more) selfish and deluded character, the suffering is never played for laughs or minimized. Bening may have a moral opinion on her character, but she doesn’t play it from that point of view, she plays it from the character’s own point of view, and that character suffers and feels, and the sadness is palpable. We, as the audience, can judge the character, but we are seeing a more complete, real character than in the Allen film.

Her last scene, when she, a little saner apparently, tries to reconnect with her son, and he rejects her, is one of the most devastating scenes. We perfectly understand Augusten’s rejection and may even cheer on it, but still Bening’s heart-break is painful in its rawness and realness.

I’m in awe, really. Absolutely top-tier performance, despite the mostly bad film it’s in.

[francesco-natale]

Yeah, I was very much impressed by Bening here ... very tricky role and she's terrific and deserved all praised for a very much authentic portrait of a character who could have been totally fake, cartoonish and ... unreal. One of her best role, IMHO, even if the movie is meh.
I think GOOP is not even trying, she clearly doesn't care about the all project.

[CitizenKian]

Too bad the movie's a bit underseen because yeah, she's a tour-de-force in that messy film.

I remember when we had the BAFTA longlist poll, i don't think she even reached double digit votes in there.

[volition]

Finally saw one of my biggest blind spots, Running with Scissors.

I’m frankly amazed and a little shocked, this may be her rawest, darkest and fiercest performance, it’s a pity it’s in such unbalanced film that’s clearly beneath the level of its acting (for once, though, I’ll say Paltrow isn’t good, as she doesn’t find the heart behind the caricature, except in one scene, but everyone else is either terrific or at least competent).

But Bening is not only MVP, but truly astonishing, and I didn’t expect her to go to such dark places in this movie, I thought it would be just a more unhinged Carolyn Burnham, but it’s more than that. Many moments are funny ( @Cinesnatch , I loved what you said about how Bening hasn’t done much comedy, and yet she injects so much humor in many of her roles that they often feel like borderline comedic performances); but many others are dark as hell, especially when she’s flatly rejecting other people’s begging for her love (her son) or for some non-selfish action on her part (when Clayburgh asks her to not see her husband anymore). It’s like she goes to a place where she’s not oblivious, she just consciously wants to be oblivious, inventing excuses to remain selfish (“I’ve been oppressed all my life, I’m not gonna be oppressed anymore”). That you can notice this subtle difference (between being oblivious and consciously trying to be oblivious), in the determination of her glance, is simply a jaw-dropping feat of acting. Later on, when Deidre is already mad, in the clinical sense, it’s even darker and sadder, her eyes are absent yet you still somewhere deep down she feels she’s kind of put herself in that situation so to escape what would normally be her responsibility and obligations towards other people.

Bening doesn’t court the audience’s sympathy (not even when she plays something for laughs), but still calls for a degree of understanding of her character. Not to be controversial, but to me it’s very important the difference between a performance like this one and a performance like Blanchett’s in Blue Jasmine. In the later, you feel like Blanchett (and Allen, in the screenplay) have judged the character and are only playing the deluded, unhinged aspects; in Bening’s performance of an equally (or more) selfish and deluded character, the suffering is never played for laughs or minimized. Bening may have a moral opinion on her character, but she doesn’t play it from that point of view, she plays it from the character’s own point of view, and that character suffers and feels, and the sadness is palpable. We, as the audience, can judge the character, but we are seeing a more complete, real character than in the Allen film.

Her last scene, when she, a little saner apparently, tries to reconnect with her son, and he rejects her, is one of the most devastating scenes. We perfectly understand Augusten’s rejection and may even cheer on it, but still Bening’s heart-break is painful in its rawness and realness.

I’m in awe, really. Absolutely top-tier performance, despite the mostly bad film it’s in.

This one was my #2 from her! I was going to post it as a must watch but you beat me to the punch.

[volition]

Also - I additionally thought Clayburgh and Joseph Cross were GREAT.

[McTeague]

Also - I additionally thought Clayburgh and Joseph Cross were GREAT.

After Bening, who's in another league, I'd say Cross > Wood > Clayburgh, who are all terrific, and then the rest, who are good except Paltrow.

[Cinesnatch]

Happy Birthday to Annette Bening!

[Solarie]

Happy Birthday to Annette Bening!

Oh, what a perfect month to host her canon

Just sent my ballot btw.

[McTeague]

Ooooh, I didn’t know this! Yes, it’s obvious stars had aligned for Bening to be played this month.

Anyways, people, three days to send your ballot! @Cinesnatch, do you plan to write more things for Bening’s latest stage of her career? Of course no pressure to do it, I’m already endlessly thankful for what amounts to actual (and brilliant) co-hosting ( @24Emmy , I think you should credit this month to me and Cinesnatch, not just to me!); it’s just that I want to see what you think of her latest works.