MAR's Top 65 Performances of the 2010s [COMPLETE]

The transformation of Christian Bale into hyperactive motor-mouth Dickie Eklund, is no mere ‘surface level gimmick’ as some would probably assert. It is lived in, dynamic and complete. Bale is fully immersed in this drugged up loser, still living off his past glories, in a town and with a family that haven’t the heart to tell him that he’s past it…if he ever really had it to begin with. The performance is big and brassy, but underneath the flashy facade, Bale gives Eklund a warmth, softness and sadness. Eklund is a shambolic failure, but we sympathize with him, as he is not a bad person thanks to a towering performance from Bale.

Javier Bardem couldn’t have gotten a more maddening character than what he got himself stuck with in “Biutiful”. This part - presented in a baffling way from scene to scene - a guy whose typical day takes him from being tough and intimidating among the worst criminals, in the next scenes being convincingly romantic and deeply loving ex-partner, a sensitive father even playful with the kids…...all with a ravaging disease and a haunted guilty conscience while evoking an aching sadness that often isn’t even discernible in the script specifically!

It’s seemingly impossible to pull off and yet Bardem never once misses a beat in connecting those scenes to this character and keeping him consistently believable as the same guy throughout. It evokes no one so much as Brando, but not Brando in any one role but as an archetype without imitation. It’s an acting miracle in transforming words to embodiment, incredibly soulful and poetic.

Possibly the most original performance of the decade—a triumph of subversion. Huppert’s Michele plays with people for the sheer pleasure of taking in their reactions: to see how emotions affect them. She herself is unaffected. She nurtures violent, taboo sexual fantasies involving her own rapist. (As the head of a videogame company, she demands that the rape scenes in the games be more “orgasmic”). And yet the genius of the performance is that the provocation lacks malice or intent of any sort: she’s so disarmingly, intuitively amoral that we accept this as her idea of personal freedom. Huppert has rarely been funnier or sexier (her mastery of tone in the Christmas scene is breathtaking, a warped comedienne): it’s one killer star turn, too. And what, ultimately, is she articulating? Huppert herself refuses to call the character a feminist or a victim. The performance suggests plotless, virtuoso defiance—to classify it would be a loss.

To call this trio featured in The Favourite one of the best of acting groups of the decade is an understatement. It is the best trio for my money and Stone has the furthest arc to carry throughout the film and is firmly capable of doing such a thing… and is especially remarkable being the only non-Brit of the bunch. In the beginning of the film Stone plays into her character’s kindhearted nature incredibly genuinely... so for her to turn conniving and capable of doing incredibly repulsive things as the film goes on might seem against her nature... but her descent into the power trap never feels unnatural. There are incredibly brief moments in the waning stages of the film that her doe-eyed selfless nature shines through, namely the single tear of gut wrenching guilt after reading Sarah’s letter. Emma Stone had probably the biggest output as far the cinematic landscape goes for young actors this decade and this is a perfect culmination of her accomplishments and meteoric rise throughout it.

There are some performances that as soon as you see them you instantly know that the actor in question is going all the way to the Dolby… and J.K. Simmons as Fletcher in Whiplash is one of those performances. It is a performance so fierce, so frenetic and so ferocious that it practically reaches through the screen, grabs hold of you and never lets go, violently shaking you throughout and making sure you’ll never forget it. And yet, despite all this, J.K. produces a couple of beautiful quieter and soulful moments that almost make you forget that this is the same man who just an hour earlier launched a piece of furniture at our protagonist for being slightly off tempo.

At this point it has been said almost ad nauseam but it is worth repeating, the best villains are often the ones who believe they are truly in the right, and Fletcher is one such of these characters. He truly believes that the way he treats his students is the best thing for them and that they will thank him for it later down the line... in other words, the ends justify the means. Subsequently, this philosophy that Fletcher holds is brought forth with seeming ease by Simmons, effortlessly blending together the loud and the quiet, the large and the small, the brazen and the controlled aspects of his performance to form a fully fleshed out character that will stand the test of time.