2015 Muriel Awards: Best Cinematic Breakthrough

As we approach Sunday’s big countdown to the Golden Muriel for Best Film, we’ll be ticking off one major award after another. But before we get to that point, let’s double back and hand out an award I somehow neglected to post before, given to someone who made an indelible impression (or more than one, perhaps) in our collective moviegoing consciousness.

Third place:

Daisy Ridley - actor, Star Wars: The Force Awakens [65 points / 11 votes]

Second place:

Bel Powley - actor, The Diary of a Teenage Girl [68 points / 11 votes]

And the Muriel goes to…

 

Alicia Vikander - actor, Ex Machina, The Danish Girl, The Man From Uncle [92 points / 14 votes]

“‘Who is this actress?’ I’m compelled to ask, rhetorically, in awe of her sudden materialization into the cinephile consciousness. It’s not just that she’s a great performer (though she is that), but that she steals three different movies, each playing a character with nothing in common with the others.

“She’s Gaby, the slinky vixen injecting feminine wiles into a masculine team of spies. She’s not the alpha female of contemporary thrillers, but a stylishly vibrant and mysterious embodiment of colorful ‘60s style and sexiness.

“She’s Gerda, the painter and wife whose love for her husband holds strong through a bewildering metamorphosis. Faced with a dilemma all but unheard of in the first half of the 20th century, she copes with her changing situation with compassion and heartbreak.

“She’s Ava, the seductive, beguiling machine. An unsettling synthesis of metal parts and razor intellect, rendered as sci-fi robot with an alluring visage, Ava, and the movie, don’t work if she’s anything less than spellbinding. But that she is, and she hits that certain cinematic sweet spot, becoming an instant bit of pop iconography.

“She’s Alicia Vikander, the revelation of 2015. And she’s here to stay.” ~ James Frazier

Click here for complete results.