Monday, February 14, 2011

Best Actress 2010: Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine



Michelle Williams received her 2nd Oscar nomination for playing Cindy, a depressed, beautiful, selfish person stuck in a bad marriage.



Blue Valentine is a unique, well made film that is worth seeing due to, as I said, it's uniqueness and the fact it features two excellent perfotrmances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.



Michelle Williams gives a very subtle, natural performance that is quite impressive. She uses her face and body movement to convey her feelings, whether they may be. She shows us that Cindy is a selfish, rather bitter person who only thinks of herself in most situations, but is still sympathetic given the fact that she is often trapped in bad relationships and can never seem to be liked for anything except her body. She completely disappears into her character, which is a huge acheivement because this role could have been terribly obvious. She has many extremely emotional moments, my favorite being the one where she is in the process geting an abortion. It's shattering, and sad, and revreals a lot about the character. Her chemistry with Ryan Gosling is fantastic as well, they just work so well together. But I had a problem with this performance and it's just that her character never seems to take off. No doubt there is a character varc, but the script doesn't give her enough dialogue mainly or character work to make Cindy a really interesting character.

But Williams still delivers a comletely realistic, and brilliantly done performance that was certainly worthy of it's nomination. I give her

7 comments:

Louis Morgan said...

She could be second. I still have not watched this though.

joe burns said...

We'll see. You should see it, it's very good..

dinasztie said...

I loved this performance. She's my second. Could Natalie or Annette be the next?

joe burns said...

Annette is for sure next, but I'm undecided on who will be after that.

Fritz said...

I think I will wait a bit for I get started on the ladies from 2010...let the buzz die down.

Very nice review that made me really interested in the movie!

joe burns said...

I was thinking about doing the same thing, but I think it's funner this way.



And thanks!

Alex Constantin said...

well, yes, it's an unusual situation. if people tend to find a flaw when it comes to this performance, it's in the character and never Michelle's choices. which is strange, considering the praise the screenplay is getting. :)