Actresses We Love & the Festivals They Are Going To
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 12:38PM Murtada here. It’s the week of fall film festivals announcements. We just heard that The Bening is going to New York. Lupita Nyong'o and Rosamund Pike are going to both London and Toronto. Let’s check in with a few others who are going to Venice, Toronto and possibly Telluride (Telluride doesn’t announce its program until its first day but if a film is announced as a Canadian Premiere at TIFF, and it hasn’t appeared at Sundance, it’s assumed to be Telluride bound).
Sally, Dakota, Rooney and more after the jump...
Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins in Maudie
Sally Hawkins - Maudie (TIFF, Telluride)
Where has Sally been hiding since Blue Jasmine (2013)? She appeared in supporting parts in Godzilla and Paddington and a blink and you’ll miss it cameo in The Double. So we are glad to see at the center of a new movie, as an arthritic Nova Scotia woman who becomes an artist and a beloved figure in her community. Is this her Theory of Everything?
Mara with Ben Mendelsohn in Una
Rooney Mara - Una (TIFF, Telluride), The Secret Scripture (TIFF), Lion (TIFF)
Get that post-Carol glow Rooney! Three films in one festival. She’s the girlfriend of a man (Dev Patel), searching for his birth parents in Lion. The big question is, of course, does she have any scenes with Nicole Kidman who’s Patel adopted mother? In The Secret Scripture, Mara and Vanessa Redgrave play the younger and older versions of a mental institution patient who’s led a turbulent life in 1920s and 1930s Ireland.
However we are most excited by Una, an adaptation of the play Blackbird which was recently on Broadway with Michelle Williams. Mara is the title character, who is confronting the older man with whom she had an affair when she was a teenager. Could this be the trump card in this year’s best actress race? After all the last two winners of that Oscar appeared first at TIFF with visceral stories that led them to triumphant acceptance speeches 5 months later.
Amy Adams - Arrival (Venice, TIFF, Telluride), Nocturnal Animals (Venice, TIFF)
Another overachiever! Adams is a linguist trying to connect with aliens in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, and a woman dealing with her past while reading her ex’s novel in Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals. The ex is Jake Gyllenhaal and lookalike Isla Fisher plays the same character in the fictional part of the movie.
Two films this fall, hmmm we wonder how many roundtables will Amy be able to squeeze in?
Dakota Fanning - Brimstone (Venice, TIFF), American Pastoral (TIFF)
Fanning joins Guy Pearce, and Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington and Carice van Houten in Brimstone, a gritty revenge western, about a young woman in a frontier community who must go on the run when she is targeted by a diabolical preacher. It’s the English language debut of Dutch director Martin Koolhoven (Winter in Wartime). Fanning is also Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connelly's radical daughter who becomes a terrorist in the adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, American Pastoral.
Cate Blanchett - Voyage of Time (Venice)
Blanchett is depriving us this year as she is not appearing in any films. However she’s narrating Terrence Malick’s documentary which is described as a “celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse.” At least we get to hear her voice. There are two versions, a short IMAX version narrated by Brad Pitt and a longer one narrated by Cate. Reports online indicate that the Cate version is the one playing Venice.
And we end with this picture, it’s all we need to make this our most anticipated fall festival film. It's Anne Heche and Sandra Oh and the film is called Catfight. Enough said. TIFF- goers we think you are in for a special treat.
Which actress are you most excited to see this fall?
Reader Comments (23)
Catfight looks like an 80's exploitation flick.
I normally hate the Hollywood tradition of changing interesting movie titles to totally bland, generic ones, but of all the titles to change, why go from "Blackbird" to "Una"? And why not cast Michelle Williams in her Tony-nominated role?
Anyway, Hawkins, Adams and whatever the hell Heche and Oh are doing sound the most interesting.
They already showed at Cannes, but
Ruth Negga: Loving (TIFF)
Golshifteh Farahani: Paterson (TIFF)
@DJDeeJay
Hollywood is about fresh faces. Michelle Williams is old news with 3 Oscar nominations and being the baby mother of Heath Ledger's sole heir. Rooney Mara despite no real evidence is likely seen as the more commercially viable actress of the two. You know it's a cold game for actresses and no one is safe unless you're British, Streep, or Lawrence.
@3rtful - I can definitely see what you're saying, but that's also what's so odd about it. Are Mara and Mendelsohn (both of whom I like to varying degrees) really more of a box office draw than Williams and Jeff Daniels? And while both of the former are talented, can you really say moreso than the latter two? Plus they're trusting this to a director with basically no feature film experience. The whole thing is just odd.
@DJDeeJay
Hollywood has a habit of not leaving well enough alone.
More excited about Rooney, can't wait to see how she follows Carol and because of Una, the play is amazing and I'm here for more Ben Mendelsohn in general.
Also Amy Adams, kinda had a fatigue of her for a while, not going to lie. But she is working with two great filmmakers and one is Tom Ford in his way overdue follow up to A Single Man.
In other actressexual news, I need reactions to this:
http://deadline.com/2016/07/beaches-remake-idina-menzel-star-lifetime-1201793989/
DJDeeJay - Una was actually shot early last summer, many months before the Broadway version was announced. So Mara came before Williams. Alison Pill played the character many years ago off Broadway.
Alison Pill had no fighting chance of being offered the screen version. Likely wasn't asked to bring the show to Broadway.
I'm very excited about Mara in Una - incredible play with plenty for her to chew over. Definitely got potential to rise into race, and look out for totally fraudulent (albeit well deserved) push for Mendelsohn in supporting actor.
Also worth noting Blackbird, which is originally a Scottish play, premiered with Jodhi May & Roger Allam, so if anyone deserved to get miffed by re-casting it's them.
Blackbird, which is originally a Scottish play, premiered with Jodhi May & Roger Allam, so if anyone deserved to get miffed by re-casting it's them.
I don't know them which is why Hollywood feels vindicated in their revisionist casting choices.
No Beat-Up Little Seagull anywhere?
Sad face.
TEAM HECHE
Actresses We Love & the Festivals They Are Going To is a marvelous headline.
Hawkins + La Bening
I miss Cotillard (and the five films she's in).
I'm super excited for Una. To me, 3-time Oscar nominee Rooney Mara has a nice ring to it. But I'm also really hoping for it to be Ben Mendelsohn's ticket to the Oscar club.
Lastly, one actress I would add making her way to the festival circuit is Isabelle Huppert. At TIFF alone, she's got Elle, Things To Come, and Souvenir.
CATFIGHT!!!!!!!!!! (in the voice of Joey Styles)
Catfight! And also whatever Anne Heche is doing at the moment. As biased as all Hell, I love her. Whatever peeps, y'all can have your Streeps and your Davis' and whoever else you hold to be the doyenne of Actressexuality, but I'll literally watch Anne read a phone book. You can't explain love like that.
So excited to see Sally in a lead role again!
Mississippi Grind should've been Ben Mendelsohn's first ticket to the Oscar club.
SoSue - couldn't agree more, why there wasn't more buzz for Mississippi Grind really shocked me. Exactly the sort of small scale character dramas that critics used to push.
SoSue and BJT- Could not agree with you guys more. He single-handedly eclipses the entire Best Actor lineup that year.