The Best Female Film Performances of 2009

Film: Crazy Heart

Director: Scott Cooper

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall

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Maggie Gyllenhaal
Crazy Heart

As thankless tasks go, playing the put-upon love interest in a rather four-square flick about a faded country musician with a drinking problem is just about at the top (or bottom) of the heap. But somehow, Maggie Gyllenhaal takes the role of Jean Craddock, a journalist and single mother who falls for the much older and well-named singer Bad Blake, and makes it something extraordinary. She comes into the relationship seemingly with eyes wide-open. But even though the audience knows exactly what Jeff Bridges’ whiskey-sodden Blake is going to do to her heart, Gyllenhaal invests Craddock with such lived-in vulnerability that they have a difficult time judging on her decision. Gyllenhaal’s Craddock might be the spectrum opposite of Sherrybaby‘s scheming junkie Sherry Swanson, but it’s fully that performance’s equal. Chris Barsanti

 

Film: Up in the Air

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman

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Vera Farmiga
Up in the Air

In a better world, Vera Farmiga would be mentioned as one of the greatest living actresses just as often as, say, Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep. But since this isn’t that better world, we’ll just have to say it for ourselves. If you looked at nothing other than Farmiga’s playing of Alex, George Clooney’s female opposite in Up in the Air, one could easily claim that there are few, if any, English-language actresses of her equal currently working. Forceful but warm, a businesswoman with a sly smile, quick wit, a great big secret and a backbone of steel, her Alex commands the screen with ease every moment she saunters onto it. With almost anyone else playing opposite Clooney, some of their scenes together would have degenerated into rom-com squishiness, but Farmiga’s cool wit and flashpan eroticism keeps their drama ticking along much longer than it has any right to. Chris Barsanti

 

Film: Where the Wild Things Are

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Catherine Keener

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Catherine Keener
Where the Wild Things Are

As Max’s mother, Catherine Keener’s performance in Where the Wild Things Are is one of great gentleness and warmth. In a few soft-spoken lines, she conveys great feeling for her son. Yet there’s also a deep sense of weariness etched in her face, an uncertainty how to relate to her over-dependent child, and a wide-eyed hurt when she berates him for being “out of control”. It’s a heavy, difficult role, forming the catalyst for Max’s own imaginative journey in the film. Keener has only a few scenes, yet her performance allows us to draw our own conclusions. It captures heartbreakingly the ambivalence in the delicate relationship between mother and son. Andrew Blackie

 

Film: The September Issue

Director: R.J. Cutler

Cast: Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington

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Grace Coddington
The September Issue

Perhaps the main lure of watching The September Issue is the morbid hope you’ll see Vogue‘s Anna Wintour lapse into Devil Loves Prada antics and eat her victims for lunch. No such luck. (Too many calories?) Instead she comes across as a fiercely decisive, driven woman with an absolutely brilliant eye — and where’s the fun in that? Fortunately filmmaker R.J. Cutler also dotes on Grace Coddington, Vogue‘s creative director. With her unruly red hair, baggy black clothes, and comfortable shoes, she doesn’t fit the mold of a high-fashion player. But if anyone can evade the imperious gaze of Wintour (seemingly always hidden behind those signature dark glasses), it’s Coddington. In asides, she champions the work of her colleagues, defends her own artistic decisions, and pointedly bitches when her pages get cut. As delightful as these moments are, the real magic is watching her cull inspiration for Vogue‘s lavish fashion spreads from myriad sources, both high and low. It’s then when you see how she coaxes the clothes from the realm of the beautiful to that of the utterly fantastical. Even Wintour has to admit the girl’s got vision. Marisa Carroll

 

Film: Observe and Report

Director: Jody Hill

Cast: Seth Rogan, Ray Liotta, Anna Faris, Michael Peña, Celia Weston, Collette Wolfe

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Collette Wolfe
Observe and Report

First appearing on viewers’ radars as Denise in The Foot Fist Way, Collette Wolfe exuded an undeniable girl-next-door charm but did not receive much screen time. So when she shows up as Nell, the innocent foil to Anna Faris’ bawdy Brandi in Jody Hill’s Observe and Report, one could be forgiven for expecting another pleasant but minor role. Yet Wolfe becomes the single crucial bit of heart in the nasty, nihilistic comedy. Although she works for a jerky boss at the mall’s food court and is partially incapacitated because of a broken leg, Nell remains optimistic for disturbed lead character Ronnie. She provides a kind of brightness he’s too dim to recognize. When her cheerfulness is challenged late in the film, Nell has an emotional breakdown in front of Ronnie, and in this scene Wolfe provides some of the most naturalistic screen acting in recent memory. This is an individual moment that succeeds way beyond the film trying to contain it, and the effect is a desire to see a whole movie about that character (or at least with that actress). If this isn’t a star-making turn, then Hollywood is clearly not paying attention. Thomas Britt

 

15 – 11

Film: Avatar

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso

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Zoë Saldana
Avatar

Though we never see her “human” form (she is a native to Pandora, after all) and must have her actions completed rendered in CG animation by motion capture technology, Ms. Saldana’s turn as Na’vi heroine Neytiri is one of the most “alive” performances of the year. Experts will tell you that no software can replicate what this talented actress does with her body, her finely realized facial expressions matching the mesmerizing voice turns flawlessly. Even better, by building the character from the actor up, James Cameron keeps things from being a pure F/X light and magic show. Instead, he lets the individual cast members find their motivation, centering the storyline in the realistic and the emotional while all manner of science fiction spectacle plays out around them. In Ms. Saldana’s case, she is truly Avatar‘s soul, the reason we care about what happens on this far off planet and the creatures that inhabit it. Bill Gibron

 

Film: The Lovely Bones

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Saoirse Ronan, Michael Imperioli

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Saoirse Ronan
The Lovely Bones

It’s the most difficult role in Peter Jackson’s astonishing afterlife fable — and the Academy Award nominated teen (who was terrific in Atonement) more than delivers. It’s not just the sense of wonder and fear, longing and personal pain. Susie Salmon must stand as both a symbol and a structure, the reason the rest of the narrative exists while acting as a constant reminder of the heartbreaking issues at stake. Somehow, Ms. Ronan reinvents such a role, turning it into an adolescent adventure tale where justice, as well as an end to lingering sorrow, are the ultimate goals. And yet through it all, she must remain frozen in time, forever young, forever cemented as the victim of an unspeakable act. Under Jackson’s masterful tutelage, she delivers something definitive. Bill Gibron

 

Film: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Director: Lee Daniels

Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

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Mariah Carey
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

To say that Carey was “unrecognizable” is an understatement. As Ms. Weiss, the audience surrogate in Precious, the singer did transform her appearance in the film to suit the role (a social worker), but what she did internally is equally interesting and that is somehow lost in discussions of the surface physical elements. When actresses “deglam” like this, it is the exterior changes that bear the brunt of the focus, but just look at Carey’s haunted reactions to Gabourey Sidibe’s casual confessions in her office — they hint at a depth and passion that has not been previously exposed in the pop star’s other work. There is a raw, real edge to Ms. Weiss that Carey exposes in these scenes with Sidibe and then in final dynamic scene with Mo’Nique’s Mary. The audience needs this kind of steely reprieve from the horrors happening in the film and also needs Carey’s empathetic, tough and grounded agent to get them the hell out of that office when things start to crumble into oblivion. We don’t know too much about where she comes from, where she goes at night or why she does this thankless job, we just know that she has enough chutzpah to confront demons and “the vampires”. She is tenacious, brave and shrewd — something that people perhaps unfairly fail to associate with the star of Glitter. These are the qualities that will afford Carey another chance at surprising us all again. Matt Mazur

 

Film: Bright Star

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox

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Abbie Cornish
Bright Star

So pinning one’s romantic hopes on the penniless tubercular poet John Keats may have been… an ill-advised idea. But the luminous Abbie Cornish plays Bright Star’s Fanny Brawne with so much passion and conviction, it begins to seem like the only possible idea, nay, the most wondrous idea ever. Like the butterflies she catches that remind her of Keats, Brawne undergoes a transformation in Bright Star, from bold flirt to devoted lover, and Cornish’s intuitive performance makes us feel her character’s every emotion, from elation to yearning to abject despair. Brawne is no mere lovesick schoolgirl, however. She is a cunning wit, a talented designer, and a fierce adversary — as worthy of Keats’s admiration as he is of hers. As Brawne struggles to articulate a critique of one of his poems, the poet asks her, “Are you frightened to speak your mind?” When Cornish replies, “Never!” you know Brawne means it. Keats may describe Brawne as “bright and delicate,” but Cornish also demonstrates her underlying heroism. Marisa Carroll

 

Film: Up in the Air

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman

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Anna Kendrick
Up in the Air

Anna Kendrick absolutely nails the role of Natalie Keener, the young go-getter in Up in the Air. She’s fresh out of college with bold new ideas on how to make the company more efficient, but she has no practical experience. Still, the boss is seduced by her money-saving plan, and it takes a show of force from Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) to convince him that she needs to get some of that practical experience before her ideas can be implemented. Kendrick practically oozes discomfort as Natalie sees what it really takes to fire someone, and yet we buy it later when she develops a complicated flow chart that attempts to account for every possible reaction to being fired. Kendrick really shines when Natalie lets down her guard, whether its breaking down in tears when her boyfriend leaves her or getting drunk at a conference in Miami. The story positions Natalie as a character we dislike at the beginning of the film, but she ends up being the one who looks the best by the movie’s end. It’s Kendrick who makes this trick possible by making Natalie a fully fleshed-out person and not a caricature. Chris Conaton

 

10 – 6

Film: Julia

Director: Erick Zonca

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Saul Rubinek, Kate del Castillo, Aidan Gould, Jude Ciccolella

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Tilda Swinton
Julia

When speaking of incredible performances, people often say that an actor inhabits a role. In Erick Zonca’s disturbing thriller, Julia, Tilda Swinton does much more than simply bringing the title character to life, she allows it to possess her completely. You’ve never seen her deliver such a visceral performance! The unforgiving story of an immoral woman, an impenitent alcoholic, who involves herself in a kidnapping and then embarks on a mad, violent journey as she tries to get the ransom for herself, Julia isn’t the sort of thing I could initially imagine viewers wanting to immerse themselves in, and yet Swinton is so engrossing you cannot help but be pulled in. Julia is disconcerting, disgusting and difficult to watch, but Swinton’s magnificent portrayal is unflinching, unrepentant and utterly unforgettable. Christel Loar

 

Film: Nine

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cottilard, Penelope Cruz, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Fergie

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Marion Cottilard
Nine

Let’s just go ahead and say it: Nine was a really fun mess. The shock at seeing so many of our great actresses singing and dancing, joined together to reinterpret a Fellini film and a beloved stage musical is what geeks like me live for. However, the final product was no ChicagoNine lacked the verve and vivaciousness of director Rob Marshall’s earlier foray into the genre. The only time a pang of genuineness graces the film is when Cotillard lights up the screen with her effervescent presence. When she sings, we feel it. When she moves, all the men pay attention. When she is away, we wonder where she is. She is to Nine what Patricia Neal was to Hud, in terms of screen time, significance to the narrative, and overall importance and presence (even in absentia) to the film. While Hud focused on Paul Newman’s caddish ranch hand, Nine looks at Daniel Day Lewis’ fraught director — but it is the stalwart women of both films that glue together the fractured shards of the mess the men have made and grab the heartstrings directly for resuscitation. Cotillard, along with her sublime work in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, has risen to the occasion by singing, dancing and acting her way out of one of the year’s biggest disappointments. The indecision over which category to place her Luisa in (lead or supporting actress) might result in the actress missing out on an Oscar nomination in the end, but what she has done onscreen this year is so much more important than that. Matt Mazur

 

Film: Away We Go

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: John Krasinksi, Maya Rudolph, Catherine O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal

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Maya Rudolph
Away We Go

While some critics hurled accusations of smugness and condescension at Away We Go, those barbs should mostly have been directed into the laps of screenwriters Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida and director Sam Mendes. Maya Rudolph, on the other hand, was a standout and revelation as the pregnant Verona. Previously known mostly for a long stint on Saturday Night Live and maybe as Luke Wilson’s co-star in Idiocracy, Rudolph took full advantage of her first shot at a real starring role. As Verona and her husband Burt (John Krasinski) traveled around the country looking for a place to live, Rudolph had to play a full range of emotions from disgusted to amused to depressed and everything in between. And she never hit a false note. While more famous actors went for broad comedy in small roles, Rudolph was responsible for giving the movie its heart. And while her performance can’t really be classified as low-key, it feels subtle and real compared to the rest of the movie, and this keeps Away We Go from descending into farce. Chris Conaton

 

Film: Antichrist

Director: Lars von Trier

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe

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Charlotte Gainsbourg
Antichrist

No one can measure the grief of a mother losing her only child. Now imagine such trauma taking place during a selfish act of lovemaking. Somehow, Lars Von Trier finds the perfect balance between histrionic insanity and stone cold feminine focus in depicting Gainsbourg’s fall from biological grace. Unlike many reviews, which dismiss the character as wholly misogynistic, Van Trier is actually celebrating the strength, the inconsistencies, and the enduring power of women. Sure, he expresses this authority with everything from genre-bending horror riffs to pure gory exploitative nonsense, but in Gainsbourg’s amazing work, we witness the literal translation of Shakespeare’s “woman scorned” sentiment. It’s Hell, but we still watch in abject fascination. Bill Gibron

 

Film: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Director: Lee Daniels

Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

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Gabourey Sidibe
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

A virtual unknown, Gabourey Sidibe’s performance in Precious was on par with that of a more seasoned actress. As the film’s title character, Sidibe portrayed a poverty-stricken teen who endured daily abuse from her mother and repeated rape by her father. A teenage mother to two children born of incest, Precious’s surly demeanor is no surprise. However, Sidibe’s performance elevated the character from becoming just another angry urban teen role, showing many sides to Precious as a survivor and young woman with raw, visible potential to her teachers. She constantly evolves the character each moment she’s onscreen. One moment, she’s broken and defensive, an enraged victim of a situation she’s had no say in. The next, Sidibe shows Precious as she sees herself in daydreams — vibrant, bubbly, and beautiful — still Precious, all the same. As the film progresses, the actress delivers a very real transformation of a socially stifled girl who is given an opportunity to rise above the life handed to her with a newfound sense of purpose. Lana Cooper

 

5 – 1

Film: Julie & Julia

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Emond

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Meryl Streep
Julie & Julia

This is one of those acting jobs where any attempt to analyze it seems doomed to come up short. When Meryl Streep bounds onto the screen as Julia Child, the brawny, giggly diplomat’s wife who muscled French cuisine into the middle American palate by sheer force of will, there is little that can stop you from buying wholeheartedly into this creation. Streep’s creation, all trilling high notes and swooning enthusiasm, is almost self-parodic in its muscular ardency. But the keening lust for life envisaged by her Child — particularly when compared to the colorless Julie Powell that director Nora Ephron sticks Amy Adams with — just knocks down all barriers in her path, demanding that you just try this beef bourguignon. Really, it’s heavenly Chris Barsanti

 

Film: Inglourious Basterds

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent, Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Til Scheweiger, Christoph Waltz

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Mélanie Laurent
Inglourious Basterds

Brad Pitt and the Basterds may be the main draw of Inglourious Basterds, and Christoph Waltz has been deservedly lauded for his performance as the slick Nazi nicknamed the Jew Hunter. But it’s Melanie Laurent, as the secretly Jewish theater owner Shosanna Dreyfus, that provides the film’s soul. The American-led Basterds and British Intelligence each have plans to get at Hitler, Goebbels, and the rest of the Nazi high command. Shosanna, though, has been lying low in Paris, not attracting attention, when a similar opportunity falls into her lap. She doesn’t hesitate, hatching a brutal plan and carrying it through even though the cost to herself is incredibly high. Laurent plays Shosanna as a bundle of tightly-wound nerves and barely concealed loathing. When an affable Nazi soldier approaches her several times to discuss film, she does her best to put him off without revealing the depth of her hatred. Later, when Shosanna encounters the Jew Hunter at a formal lunch, the tension is so palpable that the scene is difficult to watch. Laurent is just as vital to the success of Basterds as her more acclaimed co-star. Chris Conaton

 

Film: An Education

Director: Lone Scherfig

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Emma Thompson

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Carey Mulligan
An Education

There are scenes in Lone Scherfig’s An Education that are downright intoxicating, but Carey Mulligan’s performance as Jenny — a precocious British schoolgirl seduced by the much-older David — is the most bewitching thing of all. With her remarkable poise, intelligence, and sartorial flair, it’s no surprise that critics have compared Mulligan to Audrey Hepburn. Because Jenny is on the threshold of womanhood, Mulligan has to strike a difficult balance between naiveté and sophistication, but she handles it with aplomb. As Jenny drinks in every new sensation and experience, Mulligan conveys her character’s thirst for “life and color and fun.” Though we may fear for Jenny’s heart (perhaps even her safety), Mulligan makes us see exactly why the words I’d love to take you to Paris — you’d fit right in would persuade this whip-smart girl to abandon a promising future at Oxford. And not for nothing: Mulligan’s dance with Dominick Cooper to “Coming Home, Baby” may be the most sexually electric moment you’ll see all year. Marisa Carroll

 

Film: The Stoning of Soraya M.

Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh

Cast: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò, James Caviezel, Navid Negahban, David Diaan

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Shohreh Aghdashloo
The Stoning of Soraya M.

Aghdashloo has consistently deconstructed the myths and stereotypes perpetuated in Western entertainment towards women of Middle Eastern descent, by playing to the extremes and infusing them with soulfulness and first-hand knowledge. Here, she’s Soraya’s brave female lead Zahra who breaks the cycle of violence and oppression in her village by having the courage to stand up for what she believes is right and by speaking the truth, even when her life is at stake. Zahra is a multidimensional, heroic female lead character, over the age of 50, and she also happens to be Iranian, with her lines delivered mostly in Farsi. It is a particular treat that this character exists at all in a business that prizes youth and whiteness in its women for the most part. Matt Mazur

 

Film: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Director: Lee Daniels

Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

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Mo’Nique
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

As the riskiest performance of 2009, the famed stand-up comic could have gone the easy route. She could have ditched the high glamour and glitz she normally carries, put on the poverty row routine, and go for villainous monster broke. Instead, inside every outburst, every frying pan throwing sign of child abuse, we witness a walking wounded undercurrent of equally painful personal rage. Granted, she is given little more to do in Lee Daniel’s mega-melodrama than deliver the blows that press the title character toward some manner of self awareness. But then Momma gets her defining moment, a chance to confess to Mariah Carey’s social worker just how horrible her own life was — and then it all becomes crystal clear. Her brutality is part of a pattern — as this performance demonstrates flawlessly. Bill Gibron