:: Monday, December 29, 2003 ::

A quick thought about Renee Zellweger's performance in "Cold Mountain". I can't say anything about Renee without first mentioning that I have been a fan of her and have been following her career since "Love and a .45" . I read recently that she is somewhat over the top in "Mountain". The reviewer compared her performance to Debbie Reynolds as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." I beg to differ. Playing a character like Ruby Thewes might make the actress essaying the role turn into Betty Hutton ("Annie Get Your Gun") but I believe Renee showed a lot of restraint. Here is an actress (as compared to a movie star, like, say Catherine Zeta Jones, who won a Best Supporting Actress Award for "Chicago" last year) who has won some Globes ("Chicago" and "Nurse Betty") but has not been singled out by the Academy yet. Here's a Best Supporting Actress Nod from me. Seldom has someone (other than Robert de Niro) thrown their weight (as in "Briget Jones Diary") into their craft as well as Renee does. I believed in Ruby as a real person, and her arrival in "Cold Mountain" even though it was expected, delighted and surprised me. Renee is a wonderful character "actress" who doesn't fall into the same traps as some well known movie stars who wished they were actresses. She compliments and enforces Nicole Kidman's performance as Ada Monroe. She almost steals every scene she's in away from Nicole, and I've been in love with her since "Dead Calm" so that's saying something!
:: Michael Nyiri 6:37 AM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
...