Year in Review: Best Onscreen Chemistry of 2021
Monday, December 27, 2021 at 7:30PM by Team Experience
Screen chemistry is the great intangible of movies. It can happen behind the camera among teams on the same or complimentary wavelengths. Director/Muse relationships often become the stuff of legend. But the most commonly celebrated electricity is the spark between actors that you can see onscreen. Sensational chemistry between them can elevate any genre, even the ones that aren't intrinsically built on interpersonal dynamics. A thrilling duet, romantic or otherwise, can rescue a film from mediocrity and elevate a very good picture to a beloved one. Old Hollywood understood this, reteaming co-stars that clicked over and over again. Modern Hollywood has a much rougher go of this kind of repetition (given that everyone is a freelancer) so we treasure great chemistry whenever it crops up in its too fleeting way.
We polled the team on 2021's greatest examples of screen chemistry and here were their top 16 choices...
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Though they didn't make the top ten we wanted to give shout-outs to the following pairs: Simu Liu and Awkwafina having mischievous fun as platonic friends/co-workers in Shang-Chi, Scarlett Johansson & Florence Pugh as estranged violent sisters in Black Widow, Jonathan Majors and Zazie Beetz as former lovers in The Harder They Fall, Penelope Cruz & Milena Smit as new pregnant friends in Parallel Mothers, and Reinata Reinsve, twice over, with both her screen lovers, Herbert Nordrum and Anders Danielsen Lie, in The Worst Person in the World.
THE TOP TEN
10. Instafriends?... Unfollow! Block! - Zola (Taylour Paige and Riley Keough)
I mean, it’s love at first sight, right? The flurry of twitter notifications as the camera zooms in on Zola and Stefani’s faces as they grin and stare at each other, Stefani sneaking behind the register to invite Zola to spend the night together after saying she feels like they’ve met before. Their initial kinship as two working women out for a good time is genuinely lovely, and it’s such a valuable prologue for a film that’s all about how these women will go on to evaluate, manipulate, protect, and misread each other over the course of one disastrous weekend. It’s a lot of mess to sift through, and both Taylour Paige and Riley Keough find distinct registers for communicating their character’s charismatic inferiorities while still playing together beautifully. You want Zola to get the hell out of dodge, yes, but you want to watch these women sort through their shit and figure out how to make the best of a bad night. For all the guns drawn and neon lights and nude bodies (theirs included), there’s no better show in Zola than whenever Paige and Keough sit together and light the goddamn screen on fire. - Nick Taylor
09. Mother & Son - Dune (Rebecca Ferguson & Timothée Chalamet)
This chemistry isn't built on romantic heat, but on trust. Is Chalamet's Paul the leader he is without the guidance of his mother? Does Ferguson's Lady Jessica survive without the belief in her son? For the first-half of this massive story, the relationship between Jessica and Paul is the most important one for the story. Oddly seductive lingering looks aside... - Ben Miller
08. It's Complicated - Licorice Pizza (Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman)
These first-time actors are so natural that it’s hard to believe they’ve never done this before. Both of them play their characters as if they have the upper hand in the relationship when instead they’re deeply entranced by and taken with each other, hopeless to resist another questionable collaboration. That their pseudo romance is, as Alana says upon meeting Gary, illegal doesn’t lessen the attraction but instead highlights the emotional component that creates a best friendship far more watchable and worthwhile then them actually getting together would be. - Abe Fried Tanzer
07 Married, with children - CODA (Troy Kotsur & Marlee Matlin)
He has his weed; she has her wine. Other than that, Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin could not be more in sync as Frank and Jackie Rossi, the parents at the heart of Apple’s CODA. They have raised two kids – Ruby (Emilia Jones) and Leo (Daniel Durant) and built a fishing business to pass down to them. All but Ruby are deaf, which keeps them cloistered away in their own little world. In that world, they’ve developed a flourishing, wonderful life. It’s affirming to watch how Ruby helps them break out of their mold and become more ingrained in their community, rather than just their home. Kotsur and Matlin convincingly sell that their characters have been married for years, but still have the hots for each other like teenagers, and they have a language all their own. -Christopher James
06. Father & "Son" in Titane (Vincent Lindon & Agatha Rousselle)
For all its provocation, the most shocking thing about Titane is its tenderness. Model turned actress Agathe Rousselle plays Alexia and breathes life into her director's nightmarish concepts. It's a mostly silent performance, based around the brutality her physicality can embody, perpetrate, and suffer. But then, something changes as the picture's second lead enters the scene. Vincent Lindon's hunky firefighter is a bottomless well of parental need, willing to fill the void with whatever he can find. Whether a long-lost son or a murderess on the run, it doesn't matter. The unlikely bond actors and characters forge is one of 2021's cinematic miracles, a kind of self-effacing codependency that excoriates ideations of masculinity and gets drunk on bruised eroticism. If Alexia is all sharpness and mutation, Vincent is a necessary nurturing force, solid but fragile. They are complementary forces, performances fitting together like perfect puzzle pieces. - Cláudio Alves
05. They're 'Family' now - The Power of the Dog (Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee)
Watching Power of the Dog multiple times is not neccessary but highly recommended! Each time through different relationships in its quadrangle come into sharper focus. But it wouldn't be a Jane Campion film if all of those relationships weren't of the psychosexual variety. What's going on or not going on between reluctant new stepuncle and the effeminate and displaced college boy suddenly disrupting the curated masculinity of his Montana ranch? And what are they both thinking? These are the nailbiting questions and tensions in the movie's back half. Phil (Cumberbatch) thinks himself an alpha dog but Peter (Smit-McPhee) isn't barking back or playing beta. Who has the upper hand and when does it shift and why? What do they see when they look at each other? You wouldn't think two actors, both playing such closed off characters, could find this much chemistry together. But they play every possible note in this enigmatic duet. - Nathaniel R
04 Best Friends - Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar (Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig)
The way that Midwesterners communicate with each other is absolutely unmistakable, but also, in my experience, very easy for outsiders to misunderstand. But perhaps it’s a little bit easier to understand in the wake of Annie Mumolo’s Barb and Kristen Wiig’s Star, who represent one of the best depictions of the particular nuances of friendship between two middle-aged Midwestern ladies in all of cinema history. This is, to be sure, not a high bar to clear. But even in a more crowded field, this would still be something truly special: the co-stars and co-writers capture the exact way that sincerely-meant cheerful banalities can be a sign of the deep trust and love between two people whose brains work on such precisely complementary wavelengths that merely describing the world around them becomes the foundation of a shared private language, where there’s no need to impress each other or try to be clever. They just see the world the same way and react to the same things with the same energy, and if that’s not the heart and soul of the best friendships, what is? - Tim Brayton
03. Best Friends, tick, tick...BOOM! (Andrew Garfield and Robin DeJesus)
Of course Jonathan Larson, composer of Rent, was going to bring us one of the greatest gay-straight friendships on screen. When Jonathan (Garfield) and Michael (De Jesus) dance to their successes, we want to jump through the screen and join them. When they fight, we are devastated. Anyone who has leaned on a true friend in their darkest times understands this relationship. Garfield's ecstatic energy and de Jesus' emotive responses give this film such heart, making it easy to picture where Larson was pulling the inspiration for his iconic Rent characters. - Eurocheese
02. Friends? - Passing (Ruth Negga & Tessa Thompson)
Passing's central relation is between two black adult women, Claire (Negga) who lives as a white woman in 1920s New York, and Irene (Thompson) who lives in Harlem. They were once friends as children. When they meet again by chance, they're thrown by their divergent paths. Claire sees what she lost but what does Irene see... or want? Both women steal a lot of furtive glances, and through Thompson and Negga's tricky gorgeous performances an irritable fascination and latent longing emerging. "She's a girl from Chicago I use to know," Irene explains, with effortful nonchalance, but this is a tenuous and dangerous bond. - Nathaniel R
01. Uncle & Nephew - C'mon C'mon (Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman)
At the beginning of C’mon C’mon, unforeseen circumstances prompt single radio journalist Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) to become temporary caretaker of his 9-year-old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman), despite having no parenting experience and a job that requires frequent travel. The film, which could have either played that dynamic for laughs or ratcheted up the drama, does neither, instead focusing on the affection and trust that builds organically between the two. Both Phoenix and Norman are terrific, the former projecting an inviting natural warmth and gentleness, with a touch of melancholy, that we haven’t really seen since Her, while the latter completely convinces as a boy who seems at times like an old soul but is also very much a precocious, sometimes exasperating little kid who’s struggling with a lot of heavy emotional baggage. While their relationship has its share of bumps along the way, they reach a level of connection you don’t often see onscreen, either between adults or between adults and children. That’s because despite the age difference, they’re kindred spirits – slightly lonely but sensitive and perceptive misfits, each marching to the beat of his own drum, who find a way, for a time, to stride together. When Johnny records a message for Jesse to remember the experience, you really believe they’ll both remember and treasure it for the rest of their lives. -Lynn Lee
What were your favourite pairings this year onscreen?
Reader Comments (16)
I haven't seen several of the films cited above, but I agree about the ones I have watched. Additionally:
- Oscar Isaac & Tiffany Haddish in The Card Counter blow everyone else out of the water this year. I'm sweating just remembering their scenes.
- From The Harder They Fall I might have to go with Zazie and Regina King. They had incredible hate/fight chemistry. Sizzling.
- Elgort/Faist (West Side Story): it's a Tony-Riff thing.
- Chastain and that hunk (you know who I mean) in The Eyes of Tammy Faye
- MCU spoiler below:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
- Holland/Garfield/Maguire 4 eva
Yes yes yes to Barb & Star, the Zola ladies, and the steam heat coming off the screen in Power of the Dog. Love these posts and wish this was an Oscar category.
Speaking of Oscars... I don't know how many times in the past several days I've checked the calendar to see if we've hit December 22nd yet. Anxiously awaiting your updated Oscar charts!
Doug... LOLOLOL. working on them. keep coming back
working stiff-- ooh yeah, i was like RUN OFF WITH HIM, TAMMY FAYE. CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
In one of my favorite scenes this year, Ma stands solitary and still in the center of the dance floor, her hands placed defiantly on her hips. Her facial expression is noncommittal. As Pa begins to serenade her with his lip synch of a pop hit, the two lock eyes. Achingly slowly, Ma’s face shifts and glows. She lifts her arm and though it’s a crowded room, she dances just for Pa. His ardent desire shines as leaves the bandstand to join her. They rhythmically move as one. The passion generated between Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan is palpable.
@Working Stiff-AGREED!!!!!
Thanks for the love for Barb and Star as I would totally go for a sequel.
C'mon C'mon and Titane are all I've yet to see from this list, but those last two lines from Lynne have me even more excited for C'mon.
Great picks overall - why are so many claiming this is a weak year for film?? I hear this more and more every year, it's exhausting and as always I disagree. Thought-provoking dramas, hysterical comedies, hit musicals, fantastic performances (from indie to blockbuster), exciting newcomers, auteur director returns, compelling international cinema - love love love when these things are CELEBRATED! Thank you Team Experience!
I know this is all subjective, but let me just say that the #1 here is correct!
And because it's all subjective, I'll also say that I wish there was more ambiguity in the POWER OF THE DOG relationships than everyone is claiming there is. It's so funny to me people praise the film for its "heat" and tension but I find it all so muted in execution.
In terms of what's not on here, I would add Luca and Alberto from LUCA. Yes, it's animated, but it's sooooo sweet!
Me checking each morning for Oscar prediction updates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYVCL3-N03c
(But love your work Nathaniel. That's why we are so eager for them.)
Lucy (Nicole Kidman) and Desi/Ricky (Javier Bardem) in "Being the Ricardos"
Hidetoshi Nishijima (Yūsuke Kafuku) & Tōko Miura (Misaki Watari) in "Drive my Car"
I thought some of the strongest chemistry was generated by figures who never appeared on screen during memorable steamy scenes.
Cumberbatch's chemistry with Buck Henry and his many manifestations was palpable. So too was the chemistry between the Broadway community and Sondheim in Tick, tick...BOOM!'s hommage to Sunday in the Diner with Steve. And what about the chemistry between Lost Youth and Zia Patrizia in Hand of God's group sex scene? The camera may have only captured the old lady and the young boy in that bed, but the room was clearly crowded.
Also, the chemistry between Kristen Stewart and the boys who play her sons in SPENCER.
So good and heartbreaking.
And of course, Ajo Kawir and Iteung from VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH
Agree on Scarlett Johansson & Florence Pugh and Ruth Negga & Tessa Thompson, although if I was picking any pair in Dune it'd be Chalamet & Mamoa.
Neo and Trinity forever!
Rebecca Ferguson - If you have chemistry with Tom Cruise (and she does, a lot), you have chemistry with anyone.