2012 for me was a great year for supporting roles, so much so that I had to add a category to this years Best of...celebration. There were often times supporting performances were highlights of entire movies, but the best ones were the ones that did what they were designed to do: support the film.
As far as supporting actresses go, we got our full of great ones. Just off the top of my head I would name such Oscar nominees as Amy Adams in "The Master", Sally Field in "Lincoln", and Jackie Weaver in "Silver Linings Playbook" all of whom had worthy performances. I thought Anne Hathaway was nominated for the wrong film, her Selina Kyle in "The Dark Knight Rises" was highly entertaining and one of the bright spots in that film. Other contenders for me would be Shirley MacLaine as the domineering rich widow in "Bernie" and Nadine Velazquez as the drug addict who turns her life around in "Flight".
But my choice for the best supporting performance is probably the one that surprised me the most this year, and that came from Sarah Silverman in "Take this Waltz". I'm actually not sure I have seen a film that has featured Silverman before, and if I have, the name of any such film eludes me at the moment. However I have seen some of her stand-up and parts of her television series, "The Sarah Silverman Show". A lot of what she did impressed me, but again, I guess I never really gave her much notice.
But in "Take this Waltz" which is a far more interesting and complicated film than most people gave it credit for, Silverman, for my money gets the most sympathetic role as the recovering alcoholic sister in-law to Michelle Williams' lead character Margot. The film is very much Margot's story as a woman who is happily married and in love with her stable, nice and dependable husband (Seth Rogan) but fantasizes about an extra marital affair with her new neighbour (Luke Kirby) Silverman's character Geraldine is also married to a man we don't really get to know in the film, but by the end of it we get an understanding that he has no doubt seen her at her worst and continues to stick by her even if she relapses.
Geraldine is the perfect counterpoint for a character like Margot, in fact she needs her in a way Margot probably doesn't know. I felt Geraldine was a real person, and Silverman never overplays the idea of being a recovering alcoholic even in the inevitable relapse scene where she could've gone overboard. Silverman gives Geraldine an anger inside of her which she represses for most of the film, and we root for her to make the right choice and hope she does, just as it is with Margot and her somewhat more selfish and shallow choice of either staying with her husband or giving it up for an exciting fling.
The film shows that even with choices that should seem obvious as to which is right and which is wrong, life is never that clean cut.
Silverman's character gets the final word to what the film is all about, that we always feel like there's a piece that is missing in our life, that's just something you have to accept.
Silverman's character is integral in understanding the whole ideas of what "Take this Waltz" is all about, and because she creates such an honest and true character is why I think she was the best female supporting performance from last year. Too bad the Academy didn't take notice.
No comments:
Post a Comment