Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
Some actors come out of the gate strong and stay that way while others eventually fade after a strong early run. Carey Mulligan has successfully managed to stay solid after a stellar debut. In a span of 20 films before this week’s She Said, Mulligan has managed to turn in a raft of indelible performances, enough to not only fill a 5 favorites article, but to have a couple of films to spare. Those two films, Pride & Prejudice (her film debut) and Never Let Me Go, would have fit well within this list, but I found five even better films to highlight this week, so let’s get into this.
An Education (2009)
While not her first film, An Education is the film that put Carey Mulligan into the minds of most moviegoers and earned her the first of her two Oscar nominations (though, she certainly deserved citations for several other films). In this film, she plays Jenny, a sixteen-year-old student who longs to go to University and experience a life filled with culture. She’s conned by an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who treats her respectfully at first, but eventually reveals his confidence schemes to her, which she gladly accepts in exchange for him showing her the life she wants to live.
Mulligan’s performance is nuanced and richly detailed, making Jenny a smart, strong young woman whose naiveté nevertheless underlines her youth. Sarsgaard delivers one of his best performances while Alfred Molina delivers solid support as Jenny’s father. Anyone who watched this film saw instantly what a terrific actress Mulligan was and the potential she had for future success. That’s one of the reasons she nabbed an Oscar nomination for her work. Still, this was only the beginning, as many of her subsequent performances would prove. The film did decently at the Oscars, earning nods for Mulligan, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning none of them.
Shame (2011)
In Steve McQueen’s Shame, Mulligan plays a supporting role to Michael Fassbender, a sex addict whose charmed life is starting to crumble around him as he’s unable to break the addiction. Mulligan plays his sister who’s struggling through a tumultuous relationship where her self worth is taking a hit. She asks to stay with her brother only to see his peccadillos and his inability to form emotional connections up close, ultimately affecting her own fragile emotional state. Unlike our prior film, this one didn’t pick up a single Oscar nomination even though the film deserved several and Fassbender should have taken home the gold.
Fassbender is understandably the figure on which the film succeeds. His intense performance delves into the internal struggles of a man who can’t fathom how his predilections are impacting those around him. A close call at work when a porn stash is discovered, a potential romantic entanglement with a married woman, and his sister’s inability to get away from the emotionally abusive relationship she’s in and to which he’s unknowingly contributing, all come together in a compelling package. McQueen’s film is tightly constructed and moving, asking the audience to identify with a man with an addiction with which few of them are familiar.
Drive (2011)
Mulligan is once again in support, this time to Ryan Gosling in Nicolas Winding Refn’s slow-burn thriller about a mechanic and stunt car driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. With a firm set of principles he will not abandon about the timing of his involvement, he finds himself embroiled in a deadly tête-a-tête after he agrees to help Mulligan’s recently-released ex-con husband carry out a pawn shop heist. The events of the film begin spiraling out of control, though the unnamed driver remains calm and collected throughout much of the ordeal.
As usual, Mulligan shines in a thrilling crime drama that provided Gosling with one of his best roles as the no-nonsense driver with his piercing glances and subtle emotional cues. Some might have called it a simple and uncomplicated performance, but what Gosling does with it transcends the simplistic description. Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks, and Ron Perlman provide strong support, but acting honors go to Albert Brooks in an uncharacteristically unfunny role as a ruthless crime boss. The film received a single Oscar nomination for Sound Editing, which it lost, but the film deserved so many more citations, including for the film, its direction, and Gosling, Mulligan, and especially Brooks, in the acting categories.
Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)
In this adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s enduring, oft-adapted classic, director Thomas Vinterberg finds a quintet of terrific actors to inhabit his film. Mulligan plays the lead role, Bathsheba Everdene, a headstrong young woman working her aunt’s farm who finds herself caught between the love of three men. Matthias Schoenaerts plays a neighbor farmer whose flock is decimated by an inexperienced sheepdog, Michael Sheen plays a neighboring bachelor who initially comes off poorly before ultimately assisting Bathsheba in saving her farm, and Tom Sturridge is a lovelorn soldier who fawns over Bathsheba and convinces her to marry him despite his harboring a bereft heart over the loss of the love of his life, played by the fifth primary member of the ensemble, Juno Temple.
This role suits Mulligan perfectly. Allowing her strong-willed and conscientious persona to envelop Bathsheba and turn her into a sympathetic figure whose forthright demeanor sometimes blinds her to the love that’s available to her. As the events of the film play out, she finds herself drawn to each of the three men, but making the wrong decisions too frequently. It would have been nice to see her, Schoenaerts, and Sheen nominated for Oscars, but the film was overwhelmed by flashier, more brazen titles, leaving this simple, engaging adaptation in the dust.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
While each of the prior films should have seen her nominated for the Oscar (with only one of them resulting in such), this is the film she should have won the Oscar for. Mulligan is brilliant as a woman seeking vengeance for the death of her best friend and medical school classmate who took her life after the horrendous rape by fellow male classmates. Mulligan’s Cassie spends her evenings faking her drunkenness in area bars where she allows men of various ages and types the opportunity to take advantage of her only to halt the evenings in full sobriety and castigate them for their heinous behavior, often emotionally deriding supposedly upstanding, conscientious men to prove her point that many men are irredeemable bastards.
The film positions Mulligan as a righteous figure showcasing the lecherousness of men and castigating them for their behavior, hopefully convincing a few of her targets to change their ways. Yet, a chance meeting while working at a local coffee shop leads her into a romantic relationship with a sweet guy (Bo Burnham) who at first seems to suggest that her efforts are misguided. It’s a fascinating deconstruction of masculine normatives and the frightening reality that faces many women. It’s a stark and terrifying exploration that demands the audience reconcile their preconceived notions with the actual situations many women face. Mulligan’s fierce, uncompromising performance is one of the finest in recent years, standing head-and-shoulders above many of her peers. It was the most successful of her many films in terms of the Oscars, earning five nominations, including a rare nomination for directing for Emerald Fennell, who didn’t go home empty-handed, taking the prize for Best Original Screenplay, a most deserved accolade. As one of the best films and best performances of the year, it should have been honored with far more trophies.
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