From Lupita Nyong'o's bravura double performance in Us to John Travolta overacting in the worst
way in The Fanatic, here's a look back at the highest highs and lowest lows of 2019
in movie acting.
In Us, Lupita Nyong'o makes the most of a rare opportunity to put two totally different
performances in the same film.
While playing Adelaide, Nyong'o is anxious and twitchy, with her emotions building throughout
the film as she tries to protect her family.
While playing Adelaide's counterpart Red, Nyong'o is full of grace and danger, with
such an unsettling presence that you almost want to flinch when she appears on screen.
Together, Nyong'o plays the full spectrum of emotions between two identical characters
that never once leaves the viewer confused about who's who.
It's an absolutely unshakeable pair of performances that carry the film and only become more impressive
on a rewatch.
"The shadow hated the girl.
So much.
For so long."
Jessica Chastain seemed like a perfect fit to play the otherworldly alien Vuk as she
tries to bring Jean Grey over to the dark side in Dark Phoenix.
Unfortunately, while the third-act climax and script can be blamed on behind-the-scenes
drama, that doesn't excuse how boring her performance in the film is.
As Vuk, Chastain should be strange and seductive, an alluring contrast to the men in Jean's
life that are trying to control her.
Instead, Chastain just seems bored, delivering dialogue as if she's reading the script for
the first time.
"What remains of my people searched the stars for that power to control it, but it destroyed
everything it ever came into contact with…until you."
In Midsommar, Florence Pugh plays Dani as reserved, introverted, and shell-shocked following
her family's sudden death in the opening scene of the film.
Those feelings only intensify once she gets a last-minute guilt invite to her boyfriend's
vacation to a pagan festival that involves psychedelic drugs and ritualistic killing.
A lesser talent might have played Dani's grief and probable PTSD like a boiling kettle that
slowly explodes; instead, Pugh shows a more naturalistic depiction of grief.
She's looking for comfort from her no-good boyfriend, and trying to stay on top of her
emotions while taking shrooms.
When her grief finally explodes out of her in a ritual of shared pain and screaming,
it takes your breath away.
If John Travolta's starring role in 2018's mega-flop Gotti wasn't bad enough, he delivered
another stinker in 2019's The Fanatic.
The film follows an autistic man named Moose who becomes obsessed with a horror film actor.
That obsession soon curdles into an obsessive hate, which leads to Moose stalking and threatening
his favorite star.
Even if you could get past the offensive stereotypes that Travolta uses as shorthand to communicate
that Moose isn't neurotypical, the actor just can't handle playing a character that needs
to be both sympathetic and sociopathic at different points in the film.
Maybe Travolta just needs one good film to get back on top, but The Fanatic definitely
isn't it.
Like Blade Runner, another science fiction film with a powerfully ambiguous lead performance
and a burdensome voiceover attached to the theatrical version, Ad Astra feels like a
film destined to become a cult classic in the decades to come.
While the film has a dense script and some impressive visual set pieces, the core of
Ad Astra depends on Brad Pitt giving one of the most nuanced performances of his career.
As Roy McBride, Pitt is a son in search of his father.
Not just in a metaphorical way, either; he's literally tasked by SpaceCom to head out to
Neptune to search for his dad in order to stop a series of power surges that threatens
the entire solar system.
Pitt shines in the role, delivering every ounce of nuance and backstory with only a
few clenches of the jaw or far-away look.
M. Night Shymalan's early superhero film Unbreakable ends on an ambiguous note that seemed like
it would never be resolved.
That is, until Bruce Willis' David Dunn made a cameo at the end of 2017's Split, revealing
that the two films took place in the same universe.
That sets up 2019's Glass, a film that seemed to promise the long-awaited sequel to Unbreakable.
The good news for fans is that it came out.
The bad news is that the film itself is largely terrible, squandering the promise of Unbreakable's
final moments.
Glass has plenty wrong with it, but Willis' poor performance would rank high on the list.
In Unbreakable, Willis played Dunn with a quiet melancholy in a reserved, almost deadpan
performance.
It's a fine line to tread as an actor, and in Glass, Willis misses the mark entirely.
What was once an internal, carefully-calibrated sadness has become a boredom so obvious that
Willis was barely mentioned in reviews of the film, despite playing one of the most
prominent roles.
Over the course of five seasons, Aaron Paul's eternally hard-luck addict Jesse Pinkman was
basically the moral center of Breaking Bad.
Even in a show beloved for incredible performances, Paul's acting throughout was a standout.
That's partly why it was so mystifying that he didn't become a major star after the show's
end.
Besides leading roles in 2014's Need For Speed and the prestige television show The Path,
Paul's largely stuck to cameos, small roles, or voice acting work.
El Camino, the film sequel/epilogue to Breaking Bad, shows exactly what Hollywood's been missing
by reminding everyone how beautifully Paul can inhabit a role.
His performance against acting heavyweights like Jonathan Banks, Bryan Cranston, and Robert
Forster make it clear that Paul is one of the best actors around.
"You don't watch the news?"
"I have, very much so."
"So you been hearing what they've been saying about me."
Even the best actors can have misfires, and Matthew McConaughey is no exception.
Case in point: the bizarre misfire Serenity, which ranks near the bottom of the actor's
career output.
McConaughey is no stranger to turning stereotypical characters into fully fleshed-out people,
but that same instinct seems to have worked against Serenity.
Considering the laughably silly plot twist, it might have been better for McConaughey
to play the role with his tongue slightly in cheek rather than commit on the level of
his time on True Detective.
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