Meryl Streep is an uncanny mimic, but she no longer seems to inhabit a role the way she used to (The Deer Hunter; Kramer vs. Kramer; Out of Africa; Sophie’s Choice; A Cry in the Dark): authentically; credibly; moved by the part she is playing rather than moving the part.
Truth be told, I found her close to dreadful as Julia Child in Julia & Julia, and Mamma Mia—and Meryl in it—were horrendous. Neither was I taken with her in It’s Complicated or, sad to admit, The Hours...all of which is to say I think she has ultimately lost herself in her own ego, no longer vulnerable enough to capture a role in the magnificent and powerful ways she used to.
Despite the raves she is winning for Iron Lady, the few clips I have seen show a brilliantly studied actress who nevertheless seems outside of the soul of the character she is meant to portray. Like Rich Little, Meryl Streep is a preternatural impersonator. But an Oscar nod ought to require more that this.
What first alerted me to the who of who she is was the fact of her (giddy revelations about her) friendships with a group of pretend-philogynists who, insiderishly and misogynistically, call other women “broads” and who pride themselves on being special; set apart from and above other females—the very group with whom they claim to be utterly sympathetic.
Her gushing (television interview) acclaim of Amy Adams (a much-younger-than-Meryl actress who poses no ultimate threat) in Doubt, and her patent absence of praise for Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who was brilliant) in the same film, left me pressed into my chair, thinking, “Ah, so that’s your game. Clever.” (Clever since so many non-vigilant viewers would never see the nuance/s or therefore understand her undermining intentions.)
Today on Ellen, when reminded that she (Streep) is the sure upcoming Oscar winner, the actress removed her glasses, covered her face with her hands, smothered giggles, and quickly launched into the phenomenal Best Actress competition list for 2012—who, me?…among them?…how is it possible?—swiftly adding the names of the greatly gifted competitors that Ellen had forgotten. Fiddle dee dee, I said to myself. And then, again, out loud, “Cagey.”
Mostly, I don’t care. I know that Streep is talented, quick-witted and savvy. But I also think she is subtly disingenuous, and it is the degree of subtlety that makes me cringe when I see her. Moreover, I think this has been coming on for a long time. I don’t suppose for one second, for example, that she accidentally left her newly-won Oscar on the back of a toilet. Neither do I believe statements such as, “[I] can't pick out people because then I'll leave somebody off the list and it'll feel terrible."
I also think that I am a little annoyed with myself because for a long time I was so sure that she was a woman I would want to know; someone I could be friends with if she lived next door. Her relationship and what seemed her profound tenderness toward John Cazales assured me of her generous heart, unaware as I was that she would eventually be taken in by her own press and then, worse, pretend that it—her super specialness—was not so.
Furthermore, when Streep is handed, carte blanche, the title of World’s Greatest Living Actress (a claim she always seems to ‘umbly brush off and at the same time accept), I cannot help but think that I like these other women, as actresses, better:
· Cate Blanchett (whose name is eerily close to carte blanche)
· Jessica Lange
· Kristin Scott Thomas
· Jennifer Connolly
· Vanessa Redgrave
· Charlize Theron
· Judi Dench
· Carey Mulligan
· Alfre Woodard
· Glenn Close
· Elisabeth Shue
· Julianne Moore
· Helen Mirren
· Michelle Williams
· Patricia Clarkson
· Marion Cotillard
· Marisa Tomei
· Diane Wiest
· Keira Knightley
· Halle Berry
· Kate Winslet
· Maggie Gyllenhaal
· Emily Blunt
· Joan Allen
· Sigourney Weaver
· Kirsten Dunst
· Glenda Jackson
· Catherine Keener
· Nicole Kidman
· Hilary Swank
· Frances McDormand
· Holly Hunter
· Juliette Binoche
· Emily Watson
· Viola Davis
· Julia Ormond
· Barbara Hershey
· Shirley MacLaine
· Robin Wright
· Marcia Gay Harden
· Hope Davis
· Eileen Atkins
· Reese Witherspoon
· Kathy Bates
· Audrey Tautou
· Rachel Griffiths
· Minnie Driver
· Emma Thomson
· Claire Danes
· Gabourey Sidibe
· Helena Bonham Carter
· Mira Sorvino
· Maggie Smith
· Laura Dern
· Annette Bening
· Anna Paquin
· Mia Wasikowska
· Samantha Morton
By better, I mean more fluid, consistent, never parodying, emotive, and moved by the role (rather than mimicking a part and a person, which—although superior skill is required to emulate—can leave me a little cold).
And yes, I take your point about overkill, although you might be missing my point that there is not one, and it seems there never can be merely one, best actress. (If you believe there is, I think you ought to re-read The Emperor’s New Clothes.) More, if Meryl Streep indeed once merited this rare endowment, she no longer does.
Without expansive emotional generosity, genius, like patience, is eventually exhausted. Oh, the irony!
