19 Great Performances by Women Playing Love Interests
By Amy Woolsey
Jessica Chastain and David Oyelowo in A Most Violent Year (2014), screenshot courtesy of A24
1. Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)
The role: Anna Morales is the wife of Oscar Isaac’s self-made businessman, Abel. Together, they run an up-and-coming heating oil company in 1980s New York.
Why she’s great: Having done The Tree of Life and Take Shelter, Chastain is no stranger to playing wives. But no one would describe Anna as the embodiment of virtue. With her platinum-blond bob, obscenely long nails, and Brooklyn accent, she carries herself like a soldier, flaunting her wealth like armor, ready at all times to deploy a venomous smile. It’s a performance within a performance, with Chastain pretending to be Anna Walsh, the low-class daughter of a gangster, who is pretending to be Anna Morales, middle-class wife of a respectable tycoon. The Zero Dark Thirty actress articulates every syllable and makes every gesture with visible relish, but she never strays into caricature, exhibiting a keen eye for detail. It’s no wonder she and Isaac are such an electrifying duo: in addition to having been friends since their days at Julliard, they both have the rare ability to turn scenery-chewing into art.
Standout moment: Chastain has plenty of loud scenes in A Most Violent Year, the kind that might’ve been shown at the Academy Awards if she were nominated, but the scene that arguably best defines her performance is a quiet one. When Lawrence, the assistant district attorney played by David Oyelowo who’s investigating illegal activity in the heating oil business, intrudes on a birthday party at the Morales house, Anna confronts him. At first, they stand side by side, leaning against Lawrence’s car, a cigarette dangling between Anna’s fingers, and talk casually. His mention of her father, however, shatters the pretense, and Anna drops her smirk, swiveling to face the lawyer. The dagger-like stare with which Chastain fixes Oyelowo echoes her threats and the nails she brandishes in full view. And the way she tosses her cigarette is downright chilling.
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Are their any great performances we missed? How much are you ready to see every one of these ladies given a true leading role where men are merely relegated to their love interests? Sound off below!