Most promising Young Actresses – Eight Years On.

Back in 2009 in the infancy of this sit, I started compiling a top ten most promising actors and actresses.  While I was still deciding on who would make the grade, Caz from Lets Go to the Movies posted a list of top ten actors.  I duly decided to drop my actors list and write about ten young actresses.  I didn’t have a hard and fast criteria, but set an age limit of 25 and excluded anyone who was an established A list star, such as Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley who were both 24 at the time.  So what has happened since then?  The most significant thing, Scarlett Johansson aside, most of the biggest stars have broken through since the my 2009 article they include: Jennifer Lawrence, Shailene Woodley , Carey Mulligan, Rooney Mara, Dakota Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Mia Wasikowska and Emma Stone.  The most significant people I failed to mention were: Saoirse Ronan and Anna Kendrick.  So what of those I mentioned?

Dakota Fanning: 15 at the time now 23, Dakota’s most significant performance that I have seen since my original post was as Cherie Currie in The Runaways.  Although still giving good performances the great roles don’t appear to be coming her way.  She seems to have been somewhat eclipsed by her Younger sister Elle (19 today). She does have the interesting looking Ocean’s Eight coming out next year.

Kristen Stewart: I sighted Adventurland as proof that Stewart (who turns 27 today), could act and had a career beyond Bella Swan.  I think I have been proved right.   With standout suporting roles in Still Alice, Clouds of Sils Maria and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and excellent starring roles in Personal Shopper and Equals she has not only proved to be a great actress, but also one who makes interesting choices.  I am yet to see Certain Women but have heard positive things about it. 

Nikki Reed: 13 is remains and will probably remain the actresses most significant work.  Now 28 she has totally dropped off my radar, I don’t think I have seen her in anything since the Twighlight movies.   

Ellen Page: After my original article Page now 30 went on to star in the hugely successful Inception directed by Christopher Nolan.  She reprised her role as Kitty Pryde in the X-Men franchise playing a relatively small but very significant part in the excellent Days of Future Past. 

Evan Rachel Wood: I first say  Wood now 29 starring alongside Nikki Reed in 13.  At the time of writing she had appeared in The Wrestler alongside Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, she appeared to be on the brink of mega stardom but never really made the jump.  She has since found her most significant part and greatest acclaim on TV in Westworld.

Camilla Belle: At the time of writing back in 09, Belle’s star was on the rise.  Now 30, I haven’t seen her in a single movie.  She is still working with 10 IMDB credits it the time, I just haven’t seen any of them. 

Olivia Thirlby:  Best known as Juno’s best friend Olivia Thirlby was a bit of a long shot for the list.  Now 30, she hasn’t found the breakthrough role she needed.  however, she has starred in one excellent film, the massively underappreciated Dredd. 

Kat Dennings: Dennings now 30 is currently best known for the TV show 2 Broke Girls and for providing comic relief in the Thor movies . 

Megan Fox:  Now 30, I expected Fox to try more interesting roles following Jennifer’s Body, unfortunately the Transformers star seems to be concentrated on rubbish comedies and the rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise. 

Amanda Seyfried: At 24 then and 31 now, Seyfried is the oldest star on the list.  She has proved to be a first rate and diverse actor.  Most exciting of all, she is set to appear in the new series of Twin Peaks later this year. 

I also had a couple of bonus picks:

Olivia Wilde: At 25, now 33 Wilde was older than the rest on the list and still largely a TV star.  She made the breakthrough with several movie roles, the highest profile being TRON: Legacy.  She continues to work in both TV and film. 

Jennifer Ulrich: I predicted the German actress now 32 would make the jump to Hollywood, she hasn’t.  She has continued to work in German TV and Movies. 

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Outstanding Support

Whilst watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them I rapidly came to the conclusion that Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Kowalski (Dan Fogler) are more interesting than the main characters.  This got me thinking of the supporting characters that have enhanced movies this year:

Rocky: Let’s start with the strangest, Rocky as a supporting character in a Rocky movie! Creed is a Rocky movie, but it’s also its own beast and Michael B. Jordan is excellent as Adonis Johnson/Creed and was unlucky not to receive an Oscar nomination, but Sylvester Stallone was fantastic as Rocky and truly was a supporting character.

Ringer: The 5th Wave was a poor film with little to recommend it but Maika Monroe was brilliant as ever playing the most fun character in the movie.

Sheriff Chris Mannix: Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is a truly ensemble movie and it is hard to call any of the characters supporting, however, in a dialogue heavy movie one of the less well known actors stands out: Walton Goggins. Anyone who has seen Justified won’t be surprised.

Penelope Lannier: Like many people the first I heard of Dakota Johnson was Fifty Shades of Grey, like many people I thought she was the only good thing about the film.  In A Bigger Splash not only does she stand out, but she does it against some seriously amazing actors: Tilda Swinton, Marianne Lane, Ralph Fiennes.

Howard: 10 Cloverfield Lane: is a seriously leftfield sequel.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fantastic in the lead but the film would have fallen apart without the brilliant John Goodman.

Isabelle: In Louder Than Bombs, Isabelle Huppert is never less than sensational and has therefore set the bar pretty high for herself.  playing a dead character, we only see her in flashbacks, but she is the focus of the film and it wouldn’t work unless she is good.  The film is mesmerising and she is monumental.

Tanya Vanderpoel: Margot Robbie‘s best moment in Whisky Tango Foxtrot is in the trailer.  To add to this she is supporting the brilliant Tina Fey in the first movie role worthy of her talents in years.  To be honest the offhand delivery of her line in the trailer is enough to give her a place on this list, but she also provides great support in to Fey’s lead.

St Clair Bayfield and Cosmé McMoon: If Meryl Streep gets within a mile of a movie she picks up an Oscar nomination, it is therefore hard to stand out in her presence, however, in Florence Foster Jenkins two performances stand out; Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg.

Jane Clayton: The Legend of Tarzan: is a good old-fashioned action adventure film that was unfairly derided on release.  Alexander Skarsgård is good as John Clayton / Tarzan, Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson do a really good job playing Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson.  However, I would happily have watched a movie about Jane played by Margot Robbie in one of three standout performances this year.

Jillian Holtzmann: Ghostbusters is a week film.  Its problems have nothing to do with the casting or the gender of the stars and has everything to do with flabby direction and a week unfunny script.  To give an actress as talented as Kristen Wiig such a poor part is a crime .  There is one good thing about the film and this comes from the one actor I had never heard of; Kate McKinnon.

Jake: Star played by Sasha Lane is the star (pun intended) of American Honey but the standout performance comes from the supporting cast as Shia LaBeouf finally fulfils the promise of the talented young actor we saw in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and glimpsed in Nymphomaniac: and The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.

Miss Peregrine: Eva Green was the only good thing about Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, although she plays the eponymous role, she is a supporting character in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, but a memorable supporting character.

Bobby Andes and Ray Marcus: Amy Adams is the focus of Nocturnal Animals, it will be a crime if she doesn’t pickup her sixth and seventh Oscar nominations for this and Arrival, but there are other standout performances that really make the film tick: Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

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Fifty Shades of Meh,

I have never used the expression meh in my life until now, but can’t think of any other way to describe Fifty Shades of Grey.

I once heard a story about Sleeping Beauty Castle at Euro Disney/Disneyland Paris.  When the plans were revealed  it was stated that this is Europe where we have real castles, and that they would have to make it a lot bigger.  I have no idea if it is true but like the story. I thought of this as I watched Fifty Shades of Grey, it is all a matter of context.  What is the point of the film? As an erotic drama it is a little vanilla in a world that includes Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013).  As an explicit story it may contain a lot of female nudity and a few sex scenes but nothing like Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013).  But at its heart it is neither of these things, it is a romance, and not one that fairs well against Richard Linklater’s before trilogy.  So what is it? All I could think while I watched it was Twilight (2008) for people who grew up watching Pretty Woman (1990).  I thought this before learning the source novel by E.L. James started life as Twilight fan fiction.  With this context it made so much sense.  It isn’t a window into the world of BDSM, but we don’t need a window on the world.  It may have worked in this way a few years ago but today anyone with an internet connection can find real BDSM.

In the same way that The Fast and the Furious (2001) hits all the major beats of Point Break (1991), Fifty Shades of Grey follows most of the main plot points of both Pretty Woman and Twilight.  Unfortunately as a fan of neither Pretty Woman nor Twilight, I find them both more interesting that Fifty Shades of Grey.  If you think Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) bites her lip a lot wait until you meet Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson).  I watched the film in a packed cinema, there were a few individuals and a few couples but around 80% of the audience was made up of groups of women.  It is interesting as woman flock to see the film dissenters describe it as degrading to woman.  It could and possible will be debated to for years if the themes of the film are degrading to women, what is clearly degrading to woman (and men) is to give them under-written, undeveloped characters.  This is a great shame as Jamie Dornan is very good as he is in the TV show The Fall, but as with The Fall he is overshadowed by his female co star, Gillian Anderson and Dakota Johnson.  Johnson, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and granddaughter of Tippi Hedren is very good and commands the film in the way that Dornan should.  But as with her mother and grandmother who weren’t always cast in the best films I hope she finds a few great roles like they did in films like Something Wild (1986), The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964).

Since the release of the film there have been reports of E.L. James vetoing Sam Taylor-Johnson’s amendments to the dialogue.  This is a great shame as the dialogue is totally terrible and often cringe worthy.  But Taylor-Johnson has crafted an attractive film and does manage the odd moment of fun; the “business meeting” where the terms of the “contract” are discussed is truly and intentionally (I think) hilarious. Reports that Taylor-Johnson won’t be directing the sequels.  And this takes me back to the start, Fifty Shades of Meh.  For all its moments of drama, comedy and titillation, the film is just a little dull and that is unforgivable for any film.

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