Every year, we look back at cinema and remember the stories that stuck with us. This is usually thanks to a lot of phenomenal performances, thanks largely to actors. The following is a look at the performances, both live action and animated, that made a difference in how I viewed films in 2014. While this isn't a compilation of the best films of the year, this is meant to highlight the strongest examples of how a performance can make me love or at very least like a film in ways that are unexpected and sort of brilliant.
1. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) in Still Alice
Still Alice is a film that is riddled with a more conventional structure and it kind of plays against the film's better intentions. However, it all comes down to the performance in lead actress Julianne Moore. After becoming diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, the story chronicles her deteriorating memory and the impact it has on the family around her. Where many performances would build to something greater and showier, this is a role that disappears before our very eyes in a brilliant, tragic way that will leave you shattered. It is a thankless performance that you take for granted, but has so much depth that it leaves you feeling compelled in ways that you wouldn't likely assume.
2. M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) in The Grand Budapest Hotel
In a controversial opinion, M. Gustave may be the epitome of everything that a Wes Anderson character is supposed to be. He is eloquent and talks in poetic prose only occasionally breaking character when something absurd happens. Ralph Fiennes delivers a great performance that is eccentric, classy and consistently endearing. He pretty much keeps the madcap caper spirit of the film alive with every ounce of his performance. It is the essential Wes Anderson character and probably the best that he'll ever get. Thankfully, the film is just a delightful, surreal experience all around and is one of the prime examples of what cinema can be in 2014.
3. "Amazing Amy" Dunne (Rosamund Pike) in Gone Girl
There isn't much to judge this character by at first. She seems like an average housewife who lucked out when her parents vicariously used her as a hit book character. However, if you cut to the second half of the film, things become more complex and the wonder of why Amy is a phenomenal character is made clearer. Her unpredictable behavior helps to raise questions about the media and how she can manipulate it to protect her innocence. She is also the Norman Bates of this generation, like it or not. She will leave you feeling very icky and compelled at the same time in ways you wouldn't necessarily think.
4. Mason (Ellar Coltrane) in Boyhood
The lack of love for Ellar Coltrane in the wake of the Boyhood phenomenon is a little baffling. More than any other character in the movie, he evolved and changed before our very eyes. The epic that helps to define the 00's is a unique and engrossing journey that features Coltrane growing from innocent to a fully fledged teenager. It may be a normal life, but the unpredictable nature of the project at the outset adds to the value of the film actually working as great as it did. Please take note of his performance, which is at least unique in that we grew up with him over 12 years, which cannot be said for too many other performers out there.
5. Sam (Emma Stone) in Birdman
While all of the attention may be on Michael Keaton's comeback, the real knockout performance belongs to Emma Stone. Her performance as the misfit recovering drug addict is probably her best performance to date. Full of fire and humor, she manages to make one of the most rounded and interesting characters in a film that is consistently whirling and sometimes going into too gimmicky of territory. As a result, her grounded performance and endearing undertones helps to improve the performances of those around her and makes Birdman as a whole the better as a result.
6. Sam White (Tessa Thompson) in Dear White People
It is one of the most uniquely challenging films of 2014 that tackles racism in ways that are still sadly present. Leading the pack is Sam, who is an activist with a talk show. Her performance manages to provoke change at the school and the confidence of Tessa Thompson is beyond compelling. She manages to convey the complex structures at which race is explored in the film and throughout the film goes through the notions necessary to make the subject matter resonate. It is a film that challenges race in new and innovative ways that should be seen to be believed.
7. Philip Friedman (Jason Schwartzman) in Listen Up Philip
Here is the sad truth. I watched the film and felt like I related to the downward spiral of Philip a little too much. His dedication to small details and being too pompous about your work is the trappings of writers everywhere. It is rare for a performance to feel so authentic while maintaining humor, cynicism and empathy all in equal doses. The film is likely not one that will appeal to a wide audience, but it seems unlikely that writers won't have a relative opinion on how very similar they are in some ways to Philip. Even if it is just simple word choice, prepare to realize how frustrating it is to be a writer.
8. The Director in Why Don't You Play in Hell?
This film is insane. If you haven't, stop everything that you are doing and do so. While it is hard to put down one reason why this film is an applaud-worthy achievement, it all comes down to perception and enthusiasm with cinema. This all comes down to a great performance by The Director (sorry, I forget his name), who manages to turn a war between two opposing gangs into a beautifully violent and artistic ode to Japan's history. Somehow his whole scheme at the end adds to the insanity and elevates it into a strange, surreal questioning of the structure of this film. Nonetheless, it is probably the strongest example of the power of cinema.
9. Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Nightcrawler
In this Los Angeles story of how guerrilla media has an insane impact on the news, there was only one performance that made a difference. Lou Bloom is a con man who wants to do whatever he can to make quick money. With his eyes wide and a GPS system to get him quickest to a scene, it is a performance drenched in desperation. The story as a whole is an effective though not entirely successful look into modern journalism that benefits from an enjoyably candid main character. Good luck finding a journalist who is seedier and creepier than this performance, which along with Enemy means that Jake Gyllenhaal has turned in three of the best performances of the year.
10. Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) in The Theory of Everything
How long has it been since a performance was so convincing in chronicling the physical de-evolution of one man? In this story, Eddie Redmayne does a great job in slowly embodying the decline of science genius Stephen Hawking. From simple foot twists to a tilted head, he manages to create a convincing, sympathetic performance that is eventually only seen through an automated voice box. The film is powerful thanks to how convincing his role is and how much we wished that he could get better. Not since My Left Foot has there been a performance so striking that you'll be forgiven for wanting to call Redmayne one of the best actors currently working.
11. Alien (Scarlett Johansson) in Under the Skin
Without a name and with very little personality, this unnamed character wanders through Scotland in search of human contact. The film is meditative and surreal in ways that very few films in the past decade have even tried to be. The performance is rich with sexuality and the blank gaze that makes her performance more an interpretive art piece than an overtly complex role. There's so much to enjoy about the film and it is largely thanks to Scarlett Johansson's lack of personality that makes it a little more unsettling.
12. John Du Pont (Steve Carell) in Foxcatcher
The film is an unsettling account of how desperation and desire to be respected can lead to your downfall. There's also subplots about the influence of families and admiring the wrong person. In the case of John Du Pont, there is an unsettling, unknown mania to his logic. He wants to succeed, but also wants people to respect him as a person, likely to appease his mother. By the end, his disconnected personality makes one of the most intriguing and unsettling characters of the year. This is an anti-sports film that delivers on the horrors of striving for something greater only to strive with the wrong person.
13. The Boxtrolls in The Boxtrolls
This is kind of a cheat, but it is hard to single out one of LAIKA's latest creations as being the best. Together, they work as a community that talks in their own language and creatively manage to navigate the streets while transforming into boxes and becoming sympathetic without much effort. They may be crass, but they're also very funny and endearing in ways that may seem like Minions-lite, but there's more soul and personality to these characters that makes it hard to not love them.
14. Frank (Michael Fassbender) in Frank
How great is Michael Fassbender as an actor? Beyond having a fascinatingly diverse career already, he manages to pull of a crazy trick in Frank. For the majority of the film's running time, he wears a paper mache head and still manages to convey emotion and feeling. The film may be a little too quirky and off at times to be a masterpiece, but it does work as a character study of how artists are tortured and sensitive to criticism. It's also rather funny and features some rather absurd moments that does bring the charm. By the time we do actually see Frank's face, he has already expressed himself so much that it doesn't matter what his face looks like.
15. John Locke (Tom Hardy) in Locke
The film is probably one of the most ingenious and inventive films of the year to focus around a central character. Almost serving as a one actor play, the story follows Locke as he drives home. Over the course of his trip, he has many phone calls and must determine various subjects regarding his family, job and other subjects. Thankfully Tom Hardy manages to add a sincerity and deeper concern in his rather still performance that makes it one of his best. It is a lot of conveying instead of showing in the best ways possible. Good luck having a car trip as memorable as this one.
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