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THOROUGHLY MODERN MERYL
Magazine / Source: New York Magazine, August 2006 |
The first 15 years of Meryl Streep's career were filled with performances that now feel like exquisite, polished marble. There were epic achievements ("Sophie's Choice," "Out of Africa," "Ironweed"), nuanced gems of characterization ("Kramer vs. Kramer," "The French Lieutenant's Woman," "Silkwood") and lovely grace notes (a nouveau lesbian in Woody Allen's "Manhattan," a soul-sick would-be adulteress in "Falling in Love").
While Streep was known in the '80s for her ability to do any accent, from any time period, she's been equally adept at capturing the often trickier tone of modern women - from a frazzled child of Hollywood to a mean New York magazine diva. Here are some great Meryl moments from her career's second decade and a half.
"Postcards From the Edge" (1990) Essentially playing Carrie Fisher in the film of Fisher's semi-fictionalized La-La-Land novel, Streep turns her East Coast precision into West Coast slackness. Her Suzanne Vale has a slippery grasp on sobriety, but the way she yearns for, and slightly dreads, a life without drugs or drama resembles a kid wanting to join the grownup's table but worried she won't be able to follow the conversation.
"Defending Your Life" (1991) Director-star Albert Brooks has said that what he wanted in this afterlife comedy was for Streep to be so warm and sexy, "you'd want to stay with her forever." Mission accomplished. That's how Brooks' character feels, too, after he meets Streep's Julia in a post-death way station. The actress famously researches her roles, but "Life" begs the question: How'd she research being so heavenly?
"The River Wild" (1994) Action thrillers aren't Streep's natural terrain, but director Curtis Hanson clearly knew that she would somehow internalize the tough Montana whitewater setting. It's still a bit of a leap, but before bad guys Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly get villainous, watch Streep maneuver around her mopey husband (David Strathairn): She goes fore, then aft, then watches him for signs of kindness, then finally lets her eyes get slack as her attempts at true connection fail. Domestically, this character's been traversing these rapids far too long.
"Adaptation" (2002) As New Yorker writer and novelist Susan Orlean, Streep at first seems like an afterthought to the mental tortures of Nicolas Cage, playing dual roles. Then Cage's Charlie Kaufman starts peeping into Orlean's world - or what he thinks is Orlean's world, at least - and Streep lets it rip, getting looser and goosier as this tricksy movie goes on. By the time she lights up a joint and frolics with a scraggly orchid grower (Chris Cooper), it's Meryl Gone Wild!
"The Hours" (2002) In the present-day section of director Stephen Daldry's triptych about Virginia Woolf and the two future women effected by her 1925 novel "Mrs. Dalloway," Streep is a gay West Villager planning a party for her AIDS-afflicted ex-lover (Ed Harris), juggling his demands, his friends, her live-in girlfriend (Allison Janney) and her self-sufficient daughter (Claire Danes). A scene of Streep's Clarissa breaking down suddenly in her kitchen is a glimpse into how heavy the burden can be for people trying to be unaffected by their own lives.
"The Manchurian Candidate" (2004) As a Hell-born notion of Hillary Clinton, Streep is all upswept hair and pure political power-mongering, arranging for her son (Liev Schreiber) to become an assassin to further her evil political goals. Unlike Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey in the 1962 original, this "Candidate" benefits from Streep and Schreiber's creepily real Oedipal push and pull - helped by the actress's coming on like a rabid American eagle, ready to grab anyone in her claws.
"The Devil Wears Prada," "A Prairie Home Companion" (2006) A 360-degree head-swivel. The first showcases Streep as au currant fashion editrix Miranda Priestley, a frostbeast who grinds her assistant (Anne Hathaway) under her spiked heel. The second is an ensemble, with Streep as Yolanda, a hippie-dippy singer whose sweet earthiness is appreciated by the fans at a Minnesota auditorium, but mocked by her Gothy daughter (Lindsay Lohan). How Streep locates the teeny heart within Miranda and the serious backbone inside Yolanda are object lessons about how the actress herself works: From all angles at once, and always for the ages.
Originally published on August 6, 2006
