"Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner is one of the sanest, most honest movies ever made about an artistic genius, because it’s not interested in either mindlessly venerating its hero or wagging its finger at him for his failings. J. M. W. Turner does things no one else can do, and the bargain he makes with the world is that, in exchange for the body of work that he intends to 'bequeath to the nation,' he will take on no responsibilities that might distract him from his mission or drain too much from the well of emotion that he uses to fuel work. So he interacts with other people just as much as he needs to in order to satisfy hisneeds. If those he interacts with demand a little more, he will not hear of it. If you don’t like it, there’s the door. Good luck finding someone else who can paint like this and give you enough hugs on your schedule.
"As Hannah, Turner’s longtime housekeeper, Dorothy Atkinson is the most devoted and worst treated of all thepeople in Turner’s life. You can imagine that there was a time, decades ago, when you could have called them lovers; by now, they’ve settled so deeply into their defined roles as great man and quiet hireling that Turner uses her as he might a favorite piece of furniture. She’s there when he needs her, and the idea that she might need, let alone deserve, anything from him isn’t supposed to occur to anyone. Most people would be content to see her as pitiable and nothing more, a pure victim.
"Atkinson won’t have that. There’s a slyness tucked inside her docile appearance, and at one point, she unsheathes just enough of it to remind her employer that it’s there: her smiling remark that she might as well stop making the bed that they used to share, since he never sleeps init anymore, is more cutting than the frothing rages directed at Turner by his ex-lover Sarah (Ruth Sheen), who happens to be Hannah’s aunt. Having the great man’s number may be the only consolation she has in life, but armed with that, this invisible woman manages to keep her dignity, up until her last scene, when she learns that, rather than embarking on one more fling, Mr.Turner has found the woman he’s going to die beside. The most extraordinary grace note of Atkinson’s extraordinary performance is that even the total collapse of Hannah’s last shard of a hope for earthly happiness is dignified." ~ Philip Dyess-Nugent
"The situation the film presents is a series of warnings upon warnings, an art installation comprised almost exclusively of red flags. But as we expect from the impetuousness of youth, the chance to break a good story overrides those very real internal klaxons which again and again say do not embark down this particular path. The isolated compound where our plucky camera crew finds themselves is a space of unease and the unspoken, building to a near fever pitch. And then we meet Father.
"What Gene Jones does with this part, this role that could easily be cobbled together like a mockingbird's repertoire from countless newsreels, media footage, and previous films, is a rather tremendous achievement. It's a remarkably reactive turn, capable of spanning one-on-one good ol' boy masculine sincerity, beatific pride in accomplishment, the humanizing subtlety of a well-placed innuendo, and then later, as the narrative traps begin to spring left and right, the perfect dead smile of the patriarchy, then the pious certainties of a figurehead held in the grasp of an organization now beyond his control, and even the petulant impulsiveness of a spoiled child determined to take his metaphorical ball and take it on home.
"Jones finds all these points on the continuum of this archetype that we've seen done and done and done to death, but he makes it organic and inviting, finding a way to refract back at whomever Father is interacting with whatever they need at the time (and also what we as the audience need, which is often at odds with the image being aimed for). But there was simply no other scene in 2014 that had the electrifying power of Sam Turner's interview with Father in front of the entire gathered population of Eden Parish. I don't envy what it must have been like for A.J. Bowen (one of our genuinely great contemporary actors) to have to go up against Jones in this scene, because you can see this avuncular man feeding off the adoration of everyone in the pavilion as he annihilates every one of Turner's questions and parries. It's a magnificent visual depiction of vampirism, and a testament to Jones' rigorous and unsettling charisma." ~ Jason Shawhan
"The role of the ruthless Russian crime lord—a staple of Cold War-era action films which has been making a comeback as of late—wouldn’t seem to lend itself to a particularly unique interpretation. There are so many functionary steps to the waltz that can’t be omitted (purring vague threats, sucker-punching underlings, flaring your nostrils as you dispatch kill squads) that you can forgive many an actor for simply throwing on a broad Slavic accent and an expensive suit on their way to collecting a check. All of which makes Michael Nyqvist’s performance in John Wick such a wonderful surprise. Permanently residing somewhere between muted exasperation and barely concealed annoyance, Nyqvist’s Viggo Tarasov reacts to wall-to-wall death the way anyone else might acknowledge a tardy service call from the cable company or a new dent in their car’s bumper: with forehead firmly planted in the palm of their hand.
"Tasked with delivering most of the film’s exposition, rattling off the titular character’s C.V. as the ultimate badass, Nyqvist gives a truly complimentary performance, imposing onto the film’s leading man (the physically gifted but emotionally limited Keanu Reeves) a hushed reverence and abject terror that no amount of sucking chest wounds or broken bones can hope to match. Whether it’s recounting a killing spree perpetrated with a pencil or softly singing a macabre nursery rhyme whilst staring into a crackling fireplace (let it not be said that the performance isn’t ripe with knowing humor) the Swedish actor puts on a master class of understatement and weary resignation. As the film keeps spiraling outwards, unveiling elaborate secret societies and reveling in stylistically heightened violence, Nyqvist remains the stoic rock at its center." ~ Andrew Dignan
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