Happy Birthday, Joan Allen!

Well, I haven't seen some of her more acclaimed performances (like Nixon (1995) for which she received a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination; or The Contender (2000), for which she was nominated again in the Best Actress category) but I still think of her as one of my favourite performers. She always manages to shine in the littlest of roles: performances like in The Crucible (1996), where she played Elizabeth Proctor, wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, have her in a refreshingly understated, completely natural and quietly touching performance amidst a plethora of over-the-top theatrics.

Then it was her glorious turn in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) which earned her a lot of praise but little actual recognition and for which many believe she should have gotten an Oscar nomination as well. She was brilliant, as always, in a multi-layered and completely devastating performance as a woman on verge of a breakdown, displaying heartbreaking fragility through her eyes and overbearing desperation through her body language. 

Now we're on to what's one of my favourite performances of all time. Joan Allen plays Betty Parker in the gorgeous (and criminally underrated) film Pleasantville (1998) with such humanity and warmth that I think it's virtually impossible for anyone not to feel touched by her story. She is so natural here, so luminous, so full of life! This is a masterclass in acting, everyone! Seeing this woman subtly and slowly evolve from a repressed housewife to an independent, free-spirited, sexually liberated woman is one of the best lessons in character development you'll ever be likely to witness. Just thinking about it makes me cry.

7 years later she played a completely different character in the 2005 indie film The Upside of Anger. Had the film got a decent release date and some awards push, Joan Allen would have been a shoo in for Best Actress at the Oscars, or at least at the Golden Globes. As it is, though, she was wrongly overlooked for one of her best performances. This character is nothing like Betty Parker, though. She rides a roller coaster of emotions and is incredibly compelling to watch. It's fascinating to see this often supporting lady dominate the screen with such powerful stage presence. As a neurotic and completely on edge middle-age woman she is often touching and relatable but she's also scarily spot-on in her representation of an angry mom (who doesn't see their own mom in her?) and she's even surprisingly hilarious at times. Really, this performance has it all and it's truly a shame that she was so ignored by the awards circuit.

So as you see, I haven't seen much from her, but she's certainly made an impression. The rest I've seen with her was The Bourne Series (2004; 2007), in which she was incredible but had very little to do, and in her tiny role in The Notebook (2004), in which she was absolutely fantastic. Seriously, I went from actively disliking her character as the conflicted yet thoroughly annoying mother to being absolutely devastated by that very same woman in the glorious scene in which she tells her young daughter about her youth love and the decisions she had to make. Only Joan Allen can deliver such an incredibly convincing performance in such little screen time, giving as a well-rounded character out of a nothing role.

I simply cannot wait to see the rest of her filmography (especially those two for which she was nominated that I haven't seen), but I cannot say the same about her newest release Death Race! Seriously, what was she thinking? Fortunately, her two other up-coming films look more promising, if a little sappy.

I leave you with this (very short) but great clip from The Upside of Anger: Joan Allen bitch-slapping!