International Year of the Woman

It’s time to acknowledge publicly what some critics have been quietly observing: 2001 may have been a weak year for mainstream Hollywood fare, but it was a spectacular year for female performers. Indeed, it’s hard to recall a year in which actresses have made such a splash on the big screen, in lead and supporting roles, American and foreign films, comedy as well as drama.

Women delivered the kind of performances that helped make 2001 a more exciting year than it had the right to be. Here are some reasons why.

Stunning Performances by Newcomers

No movie year is truly complete if it doesn’t feature a stunning debut or breakthrough performance. Undoubtedly this year the title belongs to Naomi Watts, heroine of David Lynch’s psycho-erotic noir thriller, “Mulholland Dr.” As Betty, the bright-eyed, bisexual waitress-actress, Watts commands attention from her very first scene at LAX through the film’s spooky and bewildering ending. Watts is not exactly a newcomer. She’s been acting for a decade in TV movies and modest indies such as “Flirting” (1992), which co-starred fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman.

Actresses Coming of Age

It’s one of Hollywood’s long-held truisms that few actors are able to make a smooth transition from child to adult roles. Yet three of the year’s best performances were given by former child actresses.

Thora Birch has been acting since the age of 4 in commercials, TV series and movies. In 1999, she garnered critical praise as Kevin Spacey’s rebellious daughter in the Oscar-winning “American Beauty.” As the star of Terry Zwigoff’s “Ghost World,” she plays a teenage outsider par excellence, a misfit who’s totally out of sync with the world around her. Investing every gesture, word and thought with a specificity that makes for a fascinating performance, Birch shines as a girl whose uncensored commentary spares no one--including herself.

Birch’s “Ghost World” co-star, Scarlett Johansson, first attracted attention in the indie “Manny & Lo” (1996) and in “The Horse Whisperer” (1998), in which she played a traumatized teen. In Eva Gardos’ autobiographical “American Rhapsody” last year, Johansson played a bright Hungarian American adolescent who insists on determining her fate. Johansson conveys in a painfully sensitive way the psyche of a girl torn between two sets of parents, biological versus sociological, and two disparate value systems, West versus East.

Best known as the child vampire in “Interview With the Vampire” and for her roles in lightweight teen movies, Kirsten Dunst made a successful leap into a more adult role in “Crazy/Beautiful.” Although basically a contemporary variation of “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Crazy/Beautiful” benefits immensely from Dunst’s stirring performance as a wealthy liberal politician’s messed-up daughter who falls for a Latino schoolmate (Jay Hernandez). Dunst is a revelation as a sympathetic loser, drifting along in a sensual haze, pulled this way and that by desire and need.

Reclaiming the Comedy Genre

Most American comedies of the past two decades have revolved around men and catapulted their leads into stardom--Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey and Mike Myers, to name a few. In 2001, however, for the first time in years, the genre was defined by female-centered comedies: the British-made “Bridget Jones’s Diary” with Renee Zellweger as its single, neurotic heroine, and “Legally Blonde,” which reaffirmed Reese Witherspoon’s status as a first-rate comedian.

Zellweger didn’t rely on a fat suit to play the chubby protagonist of “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” a gimmick that Julia Roberts (“America’s Sweethearts”) and Gwyneth Paltrow (“Shallow Hal”) opted for. Like her male peers (Russell Crowe in “The Insider,” for example), Zellweger went the old-fashioned way, gaining 20 pounds by eating pizza. Much publicity was accorded the fact that an American--and a Texan at that--was chosen to portray the popular English heroine, but Zellweger proved she was perfectly cast as the awkward yet endearing “singleton” who goes from one humiliating experience to another. Drawing on her reserves of humility and vulnerability, Zellweger played a real woman with real flaws.

Slick and winsome, “Legally Blonde” was a logical follow-up to Witherspoon’s previous vehicle, “Election” (1999), in which she played an obnoxiously ambitious high schooler. In “Legally Blonde” she’s a smart but ditzy blond who goes to Harvard Law School to win back her snobbish boyfriend and, in the process, gains a new identity. Witherspoon’s high comic style harks back to Hollywood of yesteryear: With the right roles, Witherspoon could become the Carole Lombard or Judy Holliday of her generation.

Range and Versatility

This year, a number of actresses have expanded their range considerably, showing new facets of their talent. With two vastly different performances--as the dying courtesan-actress in Baz Luhrmann’s postmodern musical “Moulin Rouge” and the domineering matron in the supernatural thriller “The Others”--Nicole Kidman assumes her place as a front-rank leading lady. With her classic grace, porcelain beauty, sophisticated manner and intense stare, Kidman is frighteningly chilling as a headstrong woman and overprotective mother forced to abandon her beliefs while entering the realm of the occult. Another breakout performance came from Halle Berry, who this year showed that her talent goes beyond sheer beauty in her bravura turn in the interracial drama “Monster’s Ball.”

Defining a Movie

Without the brilliant Tilda Swinton, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s neo-noir “The Deep End” would have been just another technically accomplished thriller. With Swinton, however, the film assumes a strong dramatic center and emotional resonance that elevate it beyond a remake of Max Ophuls’ 1949 film, “The Reckless Moment.” Persuasive in detailing each of her actions, Swinton plays Margaret Hall as an ordinary, moral woman who breaks the law (when her gay son falls for a sleazy lover) because she can’t accept any disruption of the family. Swinton lends credibility to the notion that screen acting allows the camera to look within a performer’s soul.

Still alluring and sensual in her 50s, Charlotte Rampling has been acting for more than three decades, first attracting attention in Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” (1969). She had impressive supporting roles in “Stardust Memories” (1980) and “The Verdict” (1982), but her loyal fans have been frustrated by her sporadic screen work, mostly done in Europe. This year, Francois Ozon’s “Under the Sand” showcased Rampling at her coolest and most luminous. Rampling plays Marie, an English professor at a Parisian college and married for 25 years to a comforting husband. Their holiday routine is shattered when Marie dozes on the beach and her husband, having gone for a swim, vanishes. Refusing to believe he is dead, Marie insists that his case remain open, a denial that renders her unable to grieve or court other men. Rampling’s focused performance displays the cool restraint, mature wisdom and tranquil intensity seldom seen in American movies.

The French Mystique

One of the glories of French cinema, past and present, is its acceptance of the centrality of women’s sensibility in the dominant culture. This explains the large number of intriguing French films, many by men, about female protagonists--the entire oeuvre of Eric Rohmer, major films by Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and most of Andre Techine’s work (often starring Catherine Deneuve). Along with “Under the Sand,” French art house hits this year were Patrice Leconte’s “The Widow of St. Pierre” and Techine’s “Alice and Martin,” both starring Juliette Binoche, who is far more interesting in her Gallic than English-speaking films.

This year a 23-year-old French actress, Audrey Tautou, took the international cinema world by storm with her ravishing performance in the romantic comedy “Amelie,” a huge commercial success in France and elsewhere. Her intoxicating, uplifting appearance defines a feel-good movie that bursts with life.

Comeback Performance

This year Sissy Spacek wears the comeback crown. Throughout the 1990s, Spacek was mostly cast in thankless roles, but her beautifully controlled performance in Todd Field’s domestic drama “In the Bedroom” represents her best work to date.

As Ruth, the prim and proper middle-class music teacher in a small Maine town, Spacek renders a performance of precise truthfulness that relies as much on the power of silence as on dialogue. Whenever a hint of emotion creeps in, Spacek’s features seem to clench as if she were fighting not to feel. Her subtle role is composed of private, tense, minimalist gestures (such as smoking while watching late-night TV), mixing rage with self-possession, dignity with inner turbulence.

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Emanuel Levy is chief film critic for Screen International and author of “Oscar Fever: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards.”