USA TODAY International Edition
Ruth Wilson shines amid darkness
Actress shows serious talent in varied roles
You’re not liable to find a lot of lightheartedness in Ruth Wilson’s best onscreen roles. Instead, a dangerous magnetism and distinct unpredictability follow the British actress’ various complicated women.
She’s best known for her Golden Globe-winning performance on the Showtime series “The Affair” (in which she was just killed off ). It’s generally a good bet that Wilson, 36, is a tantalizing bearer of dark tidings – whether she’s the actual darkness or not – when she shows up on a cast list. And her impressive consistency in recent years has been as striking as her signature blue eyes.
Wilson’s latest, the gothic thriller “The Little Stranger,” is a ghost story of sorts set in post-World War II England. She plays Caroline Ayres, part of a formerly wealthy family whose name and huge country estate have seen better days.
She forms a relationship with Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson), the man treating Caroline’s disfigured brother (Will Poulter), as strange occurrences befall the Ayres’ house and those in it. Bad stuff happens, but while Faraday has a weird obsession with the place, Caroline is done with it and aristocracy.
There’s a melancholy crossed with a twinge of hope that Wilson brings to Caroline as well as to a standout gig as sheep-shearing Alice Bell in this summer’s British drama “Dark River.” It definitely lives up to that adjective: Alice struggles with her estranged brother (Mark Stanley) for control of their family farm in Yorkshire following the death of their father (Sean Bean), who sexually abused Alice as a child.
For the most part, Wilson’s English films have used her talents better than the more mainstream American fare – she played one-dimensional supporting moms in “The Lone Ranger” and “Saving Mr. Banks.”
Non-Anglophiles are probably more familiar with her four-season stint on “The Affair” as Alison Bailey, a Montauk waitress who cheats on her husband (Joshua Jackson) with a married writer (Dominic West) and navigates the dissolution of both marriages.
Too often the character was defined by her lovers, but the intertwining stories and shifting points of view allowed Wilson a vehicle to showcase a range of emotions, from rage and occasional happiness to the loss and pain that were never far from the surface with Alison forever haunted by the drowning death of her young son.
It wasn’t her greatest role to date, though – that honor goes to genius psychopath Alice Morgan on the BBC show “Luther.” As frenemy to London detective John Luther (Idris Elba), she’s like the Joker, Professor Moriarty and Hannibal Lecter all wrapped up in one enticingly evil package: After the murder of her parents (she did it but no one could prove her guilt), she begins to see the world in a more human way, helping Luther while he’s in turn tempted by this enigmatic figure. Wilson and Elba together are a delight for procedural aficionados.
A fifth “Luther” season is coming, with Alice perhaps coming back from the dead. (Supervillains are awfully hard to kill, especially when their doom is off screen.) Those who’ve pored through her catalog can get ready for her part as resident ruthless antagonist Marisa Coulter in an upcoming British miniseries adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials.”
Sounds like a made-to-order job for Wilson, both in name and attitude.