That style

The commentary for James Gray's Two Lovers is worth listening to; it's Gray's serious but never dull recounting of his intentions going into to making the film and the way that collaboration with Joaquin Phoenix and others sometimes put a different spin on the results. In discussing the actress Vinessa Shaw, who plays the woman whose family is buying the cleaning business owned by the father of Phoenix's character, Gray notes that he was initially uncertain about casting the gorgeous Shaw (still best known for her role in Eyes Wide Shut I think) because of her physical attributes; he describes her as looking like a "Nordic Queen" during their meeting. Gray also points out that Shaw hasn't really had much chance to work in the hyper-realist style that the emotionally detailed script for Two Lovers requires.

Do we need another post on the lack of meaty roles for women? No, but stop and think for a moment. Shaw has played prostitutes, wives (3:10 to Yuma), and horror movie fodder (The Hills Have Eyes) as a way to make a living. The chance to play a sheltered young New Yorker edging into a relationship with a mentally ill man must have seemed like a gift from the Gods. I thought of Gray's remarks about Shaw when I saw Natalie Portman in the trailer for Brothers this weekend. In this apparently intense drama Portman plays a woman drawn to her brother-in-law (Jake Gyllenhaal) after learning that her husband (Tobey Maguire) has been killed in Afghanistan. (He hasn't) Now, Portman has done costume drama, sci fi, weirdly precocious kids, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and whatever the heck V for Vendetta was supposed to be but I can't really recall her in a contemporary drama like this. Vinessa Shaw has made relatively few movies but Portman has been around for 15 years or so and has never played a contemporary American woman. It's far too early to tell if Brothers will be an awards player but I'd consider Portman's meatiest role to date to have been in the equally fraught Closer, for which she won a Golden Globe and received her only Oscar nomination. If Portman is as good in Brothers then then the chance to play a whole new type of role might take her out of the fanboy realm and into another league.