Natalie Portman’s film career, starting at the age of 12 when she starred in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional, is replete with multifarious ups and downs—mostly ups. The actress has such an impressive array of great performances—2 of them nabbing Oscar nominations (one of them a win)—that it’s almost easy to forget that she faced a near career-destroying run on Star Wars. With that says the actress has proven herself to be an exceptionally trustworthy (and at times a fiercely autonomous) talent among the industry’s biggest names, and some of its smaller ones as well. With the release of Jackie this week we’ll see something of a resurgence for the Israeli-American actress—whose last great performance, over half-a-decade ago, was followed only by forgettable Marvel runs and godawful comedies.
Beautiful Girls (1996)
Moving chronologically, we’ll start with her performance in Beautiful Girls, an agreeable but forgettable film providing an unforgettable star vehicle for Natalie Portman. Her ostentatious turn from charismatic child actor to indisputable talent is complimented by the young actress’ aching maturity and a less-aware, but equally effective naivety. Here she plays a self-conceived “old soul” who falls for an older gentleman (played by a shy, but emotionally liberated, Timothy Hutton). The relationship they share is spiritual one (made more discomforting by the fact that she is “in-love” with him); it is the oddest among the film’s many little stories, but it’s easily the most interesting. Portman is probably twice as young as any of the film’s actors but she carries Beautiful Girls with her bravura charm alone.
Anywhere but Here (1999)
By this point everyone should already know how great an actress Susan Sarandon is—she plays this character with a predictable persistence of showy flagrance. It’s not a bad performance, by any means, but we have seen so many great ones from her; would we even remember any of her halfhearted eccentricities in Anywhere but Here if not for the measured self-discipline of Natalie Portman counterbalancing it? Their mother-daughter relationship in the film is nothing new, but Portman sells her suppressed disgust for her mother’s immaturity with such an awareness for her mother’s maternal failures we see an a completely new autonomous persona from the actress—it’s no surprise she nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for this (her first major award nod). What a shame that her dry and emotionless reading of the stupendously awful Phantom Menace script completely overshadowed her performance in this o
Garden State (2004)
A timely pop anthem of a film. I wasn’t a fan of it. A giddy little picture made entirely for twenty-somethings by a bunch of twenty-somethings. Roger Ebert perhaps described Natalie Portman’s character best in the film:
Advertisement
“She is Sam, a local girl who is one of those creatures you sometimes find in the movies, a girl who is completely available, absolutely desirable and really likes you. Portman’s success in creating this character is all the more impressive because we learn almost nothing about her, except that she’s great to look at and has those positive attributes.”
Unfortunately Zach Braff seems to resign her as his protagonist’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Aside from that, however, she (and Peter Sarsgaard) create something innately special unto themselves. Up to this point I have been describing Portman as something a young actress beyond her years, but here she seems fine-tuned as a boisterously spry and emotionally frail teenager-at-heart.
Advertisement
Closer (2004)
Closer, Natalie Portman’s invariable opus at the time of its release, was the also actress’ most daring performance. An almost complete inversion of her light-hearted openness in Garden State, Portman made a colossal impression playing an enigma whose emotional striptease was as lucid and seductive as the actress’ actual one. The performance came at a time when Portman was only getting by on the good word of big name directors like Closer’s director Mike Nichols and Anthony Minghella, who directed Cold Mountain (2003) where she made a brief but memorable appearance. Closer was her star-making turn, boasting an artistically lucrative script (based off the stage play) strengthened by the actress’ eloquent wordplay. Her character’s bohemian allure may be the result of Portman’s natural beauty, but her magnetism is wrought with personal deficiencies and limitations making her performance a painstakingly human one.
Black Swan (2010)
The controversy surrounding Natalie Portman’s actual ballet dancing is almost immaterial—the dancer accusing Fox Searchlight (of using her likeness and grafting Portman’s face onto it) admitted herself that Portman was incredibly devoted to her dancing, even in spite of her asseveration. Directed by the great Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as a meek, fragile and self-destructive ballet dancer. This is arguably her (as well as Aronofsky’s) masterpiece—a eulogy on self-obsessed personalities, stagecraft and body horror. You couldn’t use a single moment in the film to define her performance. She plays off every other great performance in the movie so well (and with a wide range of diversity)—each encounter has its own unique personality-type. She’s a desexualized doll child to her mother. A sexual plaything to her dance instructor. A fully ripened lover to her rival. But to the stage she’s a force-of-nature.
Advertisement
Advertisement