Months of Meryl: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Hi, we’re John and Matt and, in case you missed it, we are watching every single feature film starring Meryl Streep.

#2 — Linda, a working-class girl waiting for the return of her fiancé (and her fiancé’s pal) from Vietnam.

JOHN: The Deer Hunter is a mammoth film, both an epic tale of a soldier’s journey to hell and back (and back again), and an intimate communal study. Meryl Streep is Linda, engaged to Nick (Christopher Walken) but in love with his best friend Michael (Robert De Niro). Streep is given an underwritten part and asked to stand-in for ideas about femininity — and often simply femininity itself — in a picture dripping with testosterone. The film carefully takes stock of its male relationships, tracing masculine bravado from the Pennsylvania mines to the roulette dens of Vietnam, both critical of masculinity and uncommonly poignant in uncovering the deep bonds that exist between men. Linda often provides the film’s only tender balm to such machismo, but Streep transforms her Girl Back Home into an uncommonly rich creation. This is no flimsy Anne Marie. Linda is a supernatural creation of intense sincerity, relaxed yet energetic, guarded yet vulnerable, the film’s emotional core and its anxious heartbeat.

The Deer Hunter contains your favorite Meryl Moment, Matthew, right?... 

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Months of Meryl: A gossipy debut in Julia (1977)

Presenting a new weekly series that we know you'll love since Meryl always perks you up. This one is modelled after Anne-Marie's "A Year with Kate" series (Anne-Marie will be back soon with a new series) so it's extra delicious that Meryl's first movie character was named Anne Marie! And now I turn you over to John and Matt. -Nathaniel R

Hi, we’re John and Matt and we are watching every single feature film starring Meryl Streep.

Meryl Streep is the Greatest Actress of All Time. Even those who have never seen a single performance of hers know this woman as, perpetually, the Best Actress. Her career is staggering. Her talent limitless. Her influence infinite. We don’t need to sell these claims, especially here. Dissenters there may be, but the choir roars. We kneel at her altar.

Meryl has acted in 52 feature films. If ever there was ever a body of work that deserves a thorough and complete look, we can think of few others than Meryl Streep’s filmography. Thus, Months of Meryl!

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