Gillian Anderson: Bleak House/of Mirth

I love the book House of Mirth, but the casting was on the atrocious side. Most of the performers are dull and/or annoying. The most disappointing was 3x Oscar nominee & 3x Emmy winner Laura Linney who seemed exactly like an actress in 2000 putting on an affected unrealistic accent. The most important was Lawrence Selden’s actor who was supposed to be so charming that women fell all over him despite his lack of wealth; he too dully annoyed me. I’ll say that Gillian Anderson, who was amazing in Bleak House, could be great in terms of facial/emotional expression and far surpassed the others in the movie, but I didn’t feel that her voice was quite right and I wasn’t able to fully sympathize with Lily. The way Wharton wrote Lily, despite her failings and errors, I was always on her side and could more or less understand the decisions she made. Anderson’s Lily often came off to me as stupid (and perhaps a bit too old), and with basically no other decent actors to play off of and an average script, she doesn’t have much to work with at all. 1.5/5

Bleak House: What a freaking strong ensemble. Anderson is amazing…I don’t remember the un-famous actors’ names, but of the others with nominations, Tulkinghorn’s actor is great-to-excellent, Esther is great, John Jaryndyce is good-to-great. Others who are good-to-great are Caddy, Woodcourt, Rosa, and Charley, while most of the rest are good. Carey Mulligan and Richard are dull and take up too much time, but I blame that on undeserving Oscar nominee Mulligan. Only Smallweed and Hortense actively annoy me, but it’s relatively easy to skip past the few parts in which they don’t have stronger actors to elevate them. In terms of the sheer number of actors deserving of awards attention, few things I’ve watched match this. Angels in America by focusing on 8 actors gives each more time to shine I suppose, but it has its actively annoying element in Thompson and dullness in Louis. A Streetcar Named Desire, I don’t see how Malden got his Oscar by being just okay most of the time; he had one scene that was even memorable. Hunter was consistent but didn’t wow me at any time. All About Eve boasts amazingness from Davis and Sanders, and some greatness from Ritter in an undeveloped role, but the rest of them are best described as serviceable. Anyway, it is greatness. 4.5/5