We first see our antihero, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman), dressed as Santa Claus while black children are looking up at him, beaming. Popeye as Santa asks them if they’ve been “good,” so he’s a God-like figure with a long white beard, presenting himself as an overseer of morality. We’ll soon find out he’s really an undercover cop, and many people look up to police as forces for good, but The French Connection will complicate that assumption.
Popeye suddenly flees…
If you want to see perfect casting, look at Rita Hayworth as the title character in Gilda. She gives an electrifying performance that blends wit and defiance with touching vulnerability. The “femme fatale” trope doesn’t do justice to this woman trapped by controlling men.
One of those men is her husband, Ballin Mundson (George Macready), who owns the casino the characters’ lives revolve around, with a similar vibe to Rick’s gin joint in Casablanca (from 4 years earlier, 1942). Before…
The title character is named over and over, but never seen. The main character (played by Joan Fontaine) is never named. The most memorable character (played by Judith Anderson) is seen for less than 20 minutes. And watching this Gothic, romantic suspense movie makes me want to rewatch it from the beginning, which is really the end… For more of my thoughts on Rebecca, see this post on my movie blog.
Margaret is uneven, but it’s held together by a strong cast, especially a phenomenal performance by Anna Paquin. Anytime something in the movie might seem implausible or overdramatic, Paquin convinces us that this is real life — that this is what it’s really like to be a passionate, flawed teenager who’s just woken up from a dream world to face a reality she isn’t ready for….
See the rest of my review in this post where I chose Margaret as one of my favorite movies of 2011.
