Annette Bening has an enduring charm
The half-life of the typical Hollywood actress is a short one, opportunities drying up in pace with slipping youth. But Annette Bening is anything but typical.
The 55-year-old Kansas native has enjoyed impressive longevity, earning four Oscar nominations since her breakthrough role in 1990’s “The Grifters.” Here’s a look at Bening’s five best film roles in a career that won’t quit, from that first Oscar nomination to her latest.
“American Beauty” (1999): Sam Mendes’ best-picturewinning black comedy-drama takes a shot at the hollow heart of the American suburban experience. While her husband, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), eagerly sheds all responsibilities to smoke pot and pursue a teenager, Carolyn (Bening) clings all the more tightly to their unraveling life, finding what joy she can in shooting guns, conducting a salacious affair with the Real Estate King, neatly manicuring her rose bushes and fiercely protecting the integrity of the Italian-silk upholstery on her sofa. In lesser hands, she’d come across as a materialistic shrew, but Bening makes her a sympathetic shadow of the woman she once was.
“The Kids are All Right” (2010): Bening’s most recent Oscar nomination was for her role in this breakout Sundance hit, a warm-hearted family drama about a committed long-term lesbian relationship (Julianne Moore plays Bening’s more free-spirited other half) and the couple’s two teenage children (Josh Hutcherson, Mia Wasikowska), who seek out the identity of their sperm-donor father (Mark Ruffalo). It’s thorny, rarely explored territory, and the delicate character work is handled expertly by this quintet of pros.
“The Grifters” (1990): Bening’s first Oscar nomination came courtesy of her breakthrough role in this wily neonoir about tricky con artists playing their own angle against the others. There’s Roy (John Cusack), a two-bit huckster; Lilly (Anjelica Huston), his estranged mother, who works the racetrack; and Myra (Bening), his girlfriend, a master manipulator who smartly plays the ditz and uses her outrageous sex appeal to get her way in this handsome Southern California noir revival.
“Bugsy” (1991): It’s an opulent 1940s period piece lush with enough window dressings to take home Oscars for best art direction and best costume design, but it’s Bening you can’t take your eyes off. She plays Virginia Hill, the sass-talking moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin “Bugsy” “Art” isn’t the word most people use to describe Mario Puzo’s novel.
And “Jaws,” by Peter Benchley, while a little more dire in the who-gets-killed department, isn’t nearly as good as the Steven Spielberg film.
As for “The Exorcist,” I’d call it a draw: The book and the Siegel, and she’s absolute dynamite, spiking this drama about the famous mobster instrumental to the development of the Las Vegas Strip with sexual tension and a dash of danger. And it’s a safe bet that the way she carried those fabulous dresses went a long way in securing the film that best-costume Oscar.
“The American President” (1995): Director Rob Reiner (“When Harry Met Sally,” “The Princess Bride”) has a rare touch with romantic comedies, and with the help of Aaron Sorkin’s script, he made an intelligent, political swooner about a widowed present (Michael Douglas) finding love, and his political footing, thanks to Bening’s principled environmental lobbyist, Sydney Ellen Wade. She’s a whip-smart romantic interest and strong enough to go head-tohead with a man as powerful as the president, which is key to the film’s enduring charm. film are great, and scary as all get out.