Anika Noni Rose in For Colored Girls

This post is especially for Stinkylulu's Supporting Actress Smackdown - The Class of 2010, which reaches its 5th year of existence and long may it continue.

While watching Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” (Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough) it’s impossible not to marvel at the film’s excellent assemblage of actresses. Whether it’s the legendary attitude of Whoopi Goldberg, the showy tendencies of Thandie Newton, the stern wisdom of Phylicia Rashad, the continually undervalued talent of Loretta Devine, Kerry Washington and Kimberley Elise, or the welcome contribution of relative newcomers Tessa Thompson and Macy Gray, everybody has a hand in carrying the novel’s wrenching emotion into a powerful cinematic experience.

The main difficulty for “For Colored Girls” is that it’s so issue-driven — with seven definitive characters that all interlink in some way — that it often translates as extremely contrived. Although the women themselves feel like realistic representations of the African-American female, the shifting focus of the film offers little time to build a sense of who they are beyond victims. They’re burdened by issues of rape, abuse, jealousy, pregnancy, infertility, but I don’t think Perry does enough to allude to how the women have got to this position, and the production takes on a bit of a Serial Drama structure. That being said, the acting is certainly the biggest success of the film, and one can imagine this turning out disastrously were the seven principal figures not so eminently watchable on-screen.

I have decided to focus on the performance which most affected me, and which sidesteps the constraints of heavy-handed plot elements with enviable ease:

*Warning: There are plot spoilers*

Anika Noni Rose is Yasmine (aka Yellow), a cool lady who teaches one of the film’s other “Colored girls” to dance, at an uptown college. She immediately strikes you as one of these people with an easy-going outlook on life, not especially well-off but by no means poor. As she helps Nyla (aka Purple) deal with her own problems she gives the impression that she recognises herself at that age, passionate and rash, and the way that she deals with Nyla reinforces the sense that she’s giving something back to an art that fostered her creative freedom. Yasmine feels completely content to live as she is, prioritising personal happiness over accumulative gain, missing love in her life for sure, but otherwise together, and proud that she has managed to acquit herself in a vocation that she loves.

We meet Yasmine’s suitor Bill as he chases after her one afternoon like a lost puppy, charming and cheeky, plying her with attention as they discuss the possibility of a date. Yasmine feels reluctant at first, and, even though she is a very attractive woman, reveals a possible lack of experience with the dating game, and a hint of bashful self-consciousness. This scene played back might reveal an innate, instinctive tentativeness in Yasmine towards Bill, and he certainly tries too hard to woo her. One often judges a concerted effort as a form of flattery more than an act of desperation or deceit, and in any case, when he invites her to cook him dinner Rose’s coy, confident smile indicates that Yasmine knows that she can make this another one of her success stories.

In the vein of “For Colored Girls” it’s somewhat inevitable to disclose that this date does not end in success, and in the second most harrowing sequence of the film (the first is not even open to debate) Yasmine finds herself in as drastic a predicament as a woman can endure. When the camera zones in on her during this sequence Rose displays such a distraught sense of resignation, and a painful dose of self-deprecating anger at not getting this one right: she should have listened to her instincts. And it carries through to the aftermath of the event, since she's predictably noble enough to report the offence to police officers but guiltily bitter towards her assailant. As Yasmine is required to identify the man’s body later in the film Rose nails a huge confluence of emotion; her unleashing of anger at not being able to confront him on a level footing, and a faint sense of pride at justice winning out. Her attack towards him reads as a natural reaction yet somewhat fearful, as if she is wary of letting her darker emotions take over.

While you’re certain that the film’s “yellow” heroine has never seen darker days, Rose gauges Yasmine’s arc immaculately, and not so drastic as to suggest that she won’t recover. In fact, one imagines that she’ll take this event relatively on-the-chin as she does with every other element of life (she shouldn’t have to, but she will) and put on as brave a face as she always has. Rose makes Yasmine the most genuine character in “For Colored Girls” despite its clamouring sense of finality towards her strand of the narrative. Yellow is the perfect colour for this woman; reliable, resilient and good-natured, sensitive, fragile and resonant. Rose resonates more than any other single element of the film, and provides one of the most valuable and finest performances of the year.

Supporting Actress Blogathon: Ginnifer Goodwin in He's Just Not That Into You

I've wanted to talk about He's Just Not That Into You ever since catching it on DVD (its cinema release was Valentines Day) and so Stinkylulu's annual Supporting Actress Blogathon emerges as the perfect platform to discuss my favourite part about it, the charming Ginnifer Goodwin. If you're hung up on category placement, and view the film as led by narrator and probable screen-time queen Ginnifer, then tough luck. I'm usually quick to accept prominent players as "leading" roles but, as with Inglourious Basterds, He's Just Not That Into You is an obvious ensemble piece, featuring a "Who's Who?" of Hollywood's gossip magazine elite, and thus I class every cast member as supporting the other.

The film's titular lament is a brazen statement, and the entire film seems geared towards warning women of not being too obvious about their need for attention and romance, even as its mere existence as a marketable romantic comedy appears to undermine what its saying, and as it inevitably confirms to women that a happy ending does exist.

Ginnifer Goodwin's Gigi is a hopeless romantic, painfully unsure of how to handle potential love interests, way too rapturous at the idea of having one in the first place, pre-occupied with the stages of development in a relationship and already desperate for the white picket fence and two-point-four children. In meeting Alex (Justin Long) she finds an inside source of information on men and how to tell whether they really like you or not, gladly absorbing his information on body language and flirting, eager to learn and become better at the dating game. Goodwin's early pedanticism is very endearing, and as a representation of the over-thought "What if the one gets away?" approach to romance she is successfully hapless, without coming across as an airhead bimbo, or anything less than remarkably intelligent.

Gigi is familiar with protocol, constantly flirting even in her and Alex's first platonic exchanges, maintaining eye contact and nodding her head slightly to show she's taking in his information, digesting it, and doesn't even think to let him go as a romantic option until her bungled attempt at a seduction ends in heavy admonishment. Goodwin navigates the negative connotations of her character's desire for testosterone, and is refreshingly aware of Gigi's emotional openness and the problems that it poses, promoting it as positive and worthwhile even though it leaves her exposed to hurt. She is responsible for the film's ultimate reverence of romance, indulgent of dating and how it's undeniably fun, even though 95% of it ends in the disappointment of not meeting the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

In the final scene, she (as with the audience) can see why Alex is standing at her door long before he declares that he "can't stop thinking about her", and yet she almost can't believe it when he tells her. Gigi is so ingrained in the process of hunting down men that she can barely acknowledge obtaining one so easily, and with little-to-no effort, that her reaction registers as uncertain, even fearful. Goodwin's face bursts into life with triumph, but one reckons that again, like the audience, Gigi learns virtually nothing out of her experience, and that she will likely work just as hard and make the same sweet mistakes that she always did as she embarks on her first relationship with a guy just as much into her as she is to him.

Olivia Thirlby in The Wackness (2008)

This is part of StinkyLulu's now-legendary Supporting Actress Blogathon. Enjoy.

Josh Peck was the kid that got pushed overboard (and don't pretend you didn't cheer when it happened) in Mean Creek. He was a big lad, but The Wackness, a story of predictably very wacky goings-on, sees him as Luke, a fairly thin drug-pusher in an early-90's era hip-hop-obsessed New York. Very often films with such malevolent and apparently braindead characters follow a similar formula, which usually involves said characters achieving relativity and forming some sort of reluctant mini-cult by the end of it. The Wackness has a lot of that "How can you be timid and so blunt?" relativity but understands its own kind by making each character appear dependent upon being liked and appreciated.

Olivia Thirlby serves as the love interest to Josh Peck's drug-ravaged and numb-brained non-entity, and one questions, initially, how she could be intrigued by someone as dull, socially-awkward and utterly different to her as Luke essentially is. Thirlby, who featured somewhat in last year's mega-hit Juno, was the title character's best friend, trusted to throw her two cents in but keep the boat afloat. In The Wackness, Thirlby's Stephanie, placid, easy, eager as she may first seem, rocks several of our male characters' boats but waltzes off into the distance a la Natalie Portman in Closer; troubled, even regretful, but forever and preferably a figure of desire.

When a man loves you, you know. A lot of men are set up so that naturally such gestures of honesty feel painful and often desperate -- at least in my experience. Thirlby reacts to Luke's declaration of love with such disdain. Not because she's disgusted by him, or love, or commitment, but rather fiercely devoted to a generation and social movement that wanted to shrug off commitment, and assertive with the knowledge that she is so much more evolved as a person than he is. At that age you do tend to pick the easier option, and so Thirlby effectively acts as the heartbreaking wake-up call to a very confused and unconventional protagonist.

What's great about the film, and her performance, is that you can imagine this story being told from other people's perspectives with the same vigour: through the eyes of Ben Kingsley's stoner, crisis-ridden doctor, and through Thirlby's teenage bombshell. She identifies with us by putting Luke as the centre of her curiosity, then dispenses with him in the intolerable way we might adopt if he wasn't the centre of The Wackness' cinematic braindead world. This braindead world is often worth exploring, but her performance, a fluctuating charming one, feels like an unexpected dose of CPR; to someone that doesn't want to be resucitated and something that doesn't need resucitating.