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.

Back to another grab bag week with Eternals opening this weekend with Oscar winner Chloé Zhao at the helm. While she doesn’t have a large enough filmography by herself to warrant an article, some members of the cast do, though not one in particular to highlight. As such, I’ll be looking at my five favorite films of five of the stars of the film: Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Brian Tyree Henry, Angelina Jolie, and Kumail Nanjiani.

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

In the film that won Angelina Jolie an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Jolie played an inmate at a psychiatric hospital where she acts as catalyst for the malcontent in the ward in which our protagonist, Winona Ryder, is housed. James Mangold brings great humanity to the women in this facility who battle an array of psychological issues that give each actress plenty of material to work with. Ryder’s character is the author of the novel on which the film is based.

The compelling nature of this film comes less from the dynamic on display between the female characters in the film, but on the societal stigma faced by each type of mental disorder, both in terms of how they are treated by the outside world as well as within the asylum itself. There’s plenty of drama between the characters with Ryder evoking a borderline personality disorder and brings the character the empathy we need to follow her through the tribulations she faces. All of the women are superb and Jolie has often been maligned for the almost psychotic performance she gives, but she effectively evokes the underlying malaise informing her sociopathy, marking it as one of her best performances and one that isn’t deserving of the derision it receives.

The Big Sick (2017)

Having risen to popularity in the HBO comedy Silicon Valley, Kumail Nanjiani has shown himself to be an able comedian whose self-deprecating humor is earnestly informed by his cultural heritage and the struggles he has faced in his personal life. One of those issues forms the basis of this film, The Big Sick, about a comedian who falls in love with a young woman who falls into a coma shortly after an agonizing break up.

As Nanjiani navigates the challenging emotional ordeal he faces, his own family fails to understand his desire for this woman and not for their arranged relationships. Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend’s parents don’t want him around until they begin to understand the love he feels for their daughter, which causes them to slowly come to appreciate the man who, up to that point, had become a stranger in their daughter’s life. The fascinating screenplay earned he and his wife, on whose story this film is based, a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination, but which should have been a more prominent player in other categories as well.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)

In The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Salma Hayek has essentially a bit part. She plays the foul-mouthed wife of Samuel L. Jackson’s hitman character. Ryan Reynolds plays the bodyguard hired to safeguard Jackson as he travels to the Hague to stand witness against a ruthless, murderous dictator (Gary Oldman). As the two men bicker and cajole as they face off against numerous forces hell-bent on their annihilation, the humor flies. While Reynolds has been better in numerous other comedies, he’s still rather good here, but Jackson seems to be working at his comedic best.

Hayek’s character is extremely amorous and deeply devoted to her husband and when she’s on screen, she steals the scenes, making her relatively small role seem like a much larger one. As far as action comedies go, this is a top-of-the-line excursion into abject absurdity. The situations and hazards the pair get into are far beyond the realm of realism, but they add such humanity, Jackson in his self-assured, vitriolic way and Reynolds in his down-to-earth portrayal of a frustrated hitman once at the top of the game, but now reduced to serving as a killer’s bodyguard. It’s a hilarious time at the movies.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Outside of Nanjiani, all of this week’s highlights have been in supporting roles. Gemma Chan has likely the least screen time in director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s bestseller Crazy Rich Asians. Constance Wu and Henry Golding play the romantic leads in this compelling look at the divide between traditionalism and modernism. Golding plays the scion of a wealthy Asian family who tries to escape his regimented lifestyle and has been dating Wu’s economics professor whose parents found a new life and modest success in America.

As Golding proposes to Wu and they return home to celebrate the engagement, Golding’s traditionalist mother (Michelle Yeoh) gets in the way of their engagement attempting to expose her son’s outré girlfriend as a classless woman only marrying him for his money. Chan’s role in the film is as Golding’s socialite cousin. She is given a couple of solid moments to deliver important messages to her cousin, but they aren’t sufficiently compelling on their own. She’s good, but Wu, Golding, and Yeoh are all superb in their fascinating social interplay. Chu’s film successfully merges traditionalism and modernism in one compelling feature.

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Based on a seminal work from author James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk explores American life and culture in the 1970s as experienced by Black families. Stephan James plays Fonny and KiKi Layne is Tish, two young lovers pulled apart by bigotry and lies. The film follows the beginning of their relationship, examining their hopes and dreams in great deal as they anticipate their eventual marriage. Brian Tyree Henry has a minuscule role in the film as one of Fonny’s friends, a parolee with some sage advice for the young man.

The film gives Regina King an Oscar-winning role in supporting actress, a role that seems to have significantly more screen time than either of the leads. King goes on a journey to prove Fonny’s innocence, tracking down the woman who falsely accused him of sexual assault, hoping that she will recant her testimony and the pair of star-crossed lovers can have a happy life together. Barry Jenkins’ film is gorgeously constructed with beautiful photography by James Laxton. Each frame is a painterly composition, solidifying Jenkins and Laxton as two of the finest working talents in the film industry. Criminally under rewarded, If Beale Street Could Talk was easily the best film of 2018 even if few declared it as such.