Cynthia Nixon - A Quiet Passion [204 points / 19 votes]
"The Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman has inspired various degrees of adoration among the most ardent cinephiles for his complex philosophical themes, stark visuals and spare use of classical music, but just as prevalent his ability to coax extraordinary performances from his acting company, especially the females. A fair argument in fact could be posed that no other film artist has featured in his films a comparable number of great turns from women over a career spanning nearly five decades. Britain's greatest living director Terence Davies has written and directed only a fraction of the iconic Scandinavian's films, yet his work with the fairer sex has already yielded some critically-acclaimed lead turns that attest to a special gift from the man in charge.
"The first two were by Gillian Anderson playing Lily Bart in The House of Mirth (based on a novel by Edith Wharton), and by Rachel Weisz as Hester Collyer in The Deep Blue Sea. The latter won the New York Film Critics prize for best Actress, while the former won second place from the same organization. Anderson also finished as the runner-up for the National Society of Film Critics Best Picture Award. In 2016 Davies has again rung the bell for thespian excellence, setting the stage for Sex in the City stalwart Cynthia Nixon to travel down the road once taken by Renee Falconetti in 1928's The Passion of Joan of Arc. While any discussion of Nixon's magnificent interpretation of the beloved poet Emily Dickinson in comparative terms with Falconetti's legendary work - regarded by many as the most electrifying in movie history - is taking things too far, the underlying point revolves around Nixon transcending a career which till this point had never demanded a comparable level of depth and intimacy, nor such a hybrid of intelligence and emotion.
"In a métier of film roles that included thrillers, comedies and less intricate drama, Nixon came arguably closest to the intensity of her work in A Quiet Passion only in her lead performance in the Broadway staging of Rabbit Hole, which won her a Tony Award. But in Davies' lyrical chamber drama, one where words have rarely taken such integral and provocative an implication, she is called on to humanize an embittered recluse who lashes out against social mores, and hides the brewing emotions inside of her with stoicism and the famed anti-social conventions that made her as almost as prickly as the famed artist J. M. W. Turner in Mike Leigh's 2014 biopic of the cantankerous British landscape artist.
"In the rapturous, painterly film, dominated by lyrical camera turns and sunlight, flower and sun umbrella resplendence, Nixon's voice over reading of some of her most renowned works are passionately rendered. She is masterful at juggling the demands of a role equally attuned at feminism and submissiveness, to rebelliousness and cognizance of the societal status quo at a time when her leaving the box was as shunned as as her own family's exasperation at her uncouth behavior. Nixon negotiates pensiveness, ire, fear, anxiety and madness, in a narrative that runs the gamut from caustic wit to an almost morbid severity. Her three hour midnight talk with Susan segues into a character metamorphosis leaving as a white-wearing mourner who never leaves the house and finally her bedroom. Her death scene is one of the most visually shattering ever filmed. The actress has confirmed she came to the role having read and studied Dickinson growing up, and understood the poet's desire to connect with society yet maintain her rigid privacy. Her intensity and immersion under Davies's nuanced direction has resulted in what this writer feels was the most distinguished lead performance by male or female in 2017." ~ Sam Juliano
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