100 Performances: 2000-07
Being, for better or worse, a compulsive list-maker, you know I can't go too long without putting one of these stupid things together. This time, I compiled my one hundred favorite performances of the new millennium, thus far. Here's
that. Below are some brief notes on my picks for the top ten.
01. 
I know what you're probably thinking: Odd choice for the top spot--he's not the film's lead, the role isn't remotely showy, it's just a past-his-prime warhorse turning in an uncharacteristically low-key appearance in a hip indie. But Nick Nolte's performance in
Clean is a wondrous thing, warm, soulful, in a word or two, incredibly human. Each time I return to Assayas' underrated addiction flick, I find myself marveling at how Nolte brings just the right amount of gravitas to his grieving father/cautiously supportive father-in-law role. Had he opted instead to chew scenery--see, for example, his audacious perf in Ang Lee's
Hulk--it would've spoiled the film's hard-earned redemptive tone. You've got to give Assayas credit, too, for recognizing that Nolte was perfect for the part, and for (presumably) coaching him to dial down his signature histrionics; the rage simmering below his character's grief is entirely palpable without an obligatory freak-out scene.
02. 
Somehow, at the dawn of the new century, Scully from
The X-Files managed to do what Martin Scorsese had struggled with: She translated the emotional nuance and tragic dimensions of Edith Wharton's literature to celluloid. Gillian Anderson's Lily Bart is a creation like Anne Wiazemsky's Marie in
Au hasard Balthazar. She fights to stay afloat, but is dragged further and further down by her environment, until, finally, she's too exhausted to keep up that fight. Come to think of it, in Terence Davies' cooly and cruelly rendered turn-of-the-century New York, she's also rather like the title character of Bresson's masterpiece. Though, in the end, she sets herself out to pasture, so to speak, it's no less devastating.
03. 
Okay, disregard for a moment my praise of Nolte's low-key, non-histrionic turn. Sean Penn's
Mystic River performance astonishes for the same reason most of his best performances (excluding, of course,
Fast Times at Ridgemont High and
Sweet and Lowdown) astonish: dramatic fireworks. In Eastwood's film, Penn (playing, like Nolte, a grieving father) is absolutely explosive. It's as if he thought to himself, in preparation for the part, "How would Tony Soprano act if some bastard killed Meadow?"--and just took off from there.
04. 
In the mysanthropic-yet-secretly-sweet-natured record geek Seymour, Steve Buscemi finally got the role he richly deserved after years of slumming his singular talents in Adam Sandler vehicles and Jerry Bruckheimer garbage. The performance he turned in was extraordinary. Just think of that scene in the hospital: "I'm high on life," Buscemi deadpans. From anyone else, it's a good line; the way Buscemi delivers it, it's down-right heartbreaking.
05. 
It's time to give the girl the props she deserves: Kirsten Dunst is the best actress of her generation. Whether in
Spider-Man (or its sequels),
Bring It On, or more "serious" fare (
crazy/beautiful,
Marie Antoinette, both of which also turn up later on my list), she hits it out of the park every time she steps to the plate. Her performance as aspiring comedienne, and more famously, William Randolph Hearst mistress Marion Davies is her strongest work to date. She's the all-too-fragile heart and soul of Peter Bogdanovich's underappreciated mystery-cum-mood piece. Additionally, Dunst's performance makes for a fascinating comparison alongside Dorothy Comingmore's Susan Alexander in
Citizen Kane.
06. 
Like Dunst's Davies, Amy Adams' rightly awarded
Junebug turn is a deftly handled exercise in hinting at dissatisfaction and sadness behind a sprightly facade. Yet even after Adams' character, Ashley, miscarries her baby, she doesn't seem hopeless--or humorless. That's the triumph of Adams' performance: credibly portraying the extremes in human emotion, while remaining true to the essence of one of the most lovable characters to grace American movies so far this millennium.
07. 
The reason the scene, near the end of the film, where we see Wladyslaw Szpilman once again playing his piano (echoing the film's opening image), registers as deeply as it does is due to just how effectively Adrien Brody expresses Szpilman's perilous journey through Polanski's nightmare vision of Nazi-occupied Poland. In that penultimate moment, you can see in Brody's eyes the unspeakable horrors Szpilman's witnessed and endured in navigating his way from Point A to Point B. When, all of a sudden, he cracks a smile, it's the most optimistic--and beautiful--moment in Polanski's dark
oeuvre.
08. and
09. 
Amy Taubin accurately described
Before Sunset as "Mozartian." Like a Mozart concerto, Linklater's belated sequel wouldn't work without every part falling perfectly into place--the real-time structure, the pitch-perfect script, the expertly designated Paris locations, the luminous, graceful photography. And, of course, the performances, by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. As in the first film, Delpy and Hawke
are Celine and Jesse. Here, they convincingly age their classic couple by almost a decade, precisely articulating their disappointments with thirtysomething adulthood and worn-down idealism. Naturally, they still have uncanny on-screen chemistry.
10. 
Full-disclosure: I initially hated this movie, and especially Summer Phoenix's seemingly inept performance. Eventually, I
came around, and now regard Desplechin's film as something of a minor masterpiece, and Phoenix's performance as uniquely intuitive. The title character is an aspiring actress with virtually no personality to speak of when she's not on stage. What Phoenix accomplishes here, in the unenviable task of playing a blank slate, is a compelling study, simultaneously self-conscious and naked, of the craft of acting.
See selections 11-100.
