Total Recall: Natalie Portman's Best Movies
We break down the 10 best reviewed films in the Brothers star's career.
Child actors are notorious for fizzling out once their prepubescent charms disappear during adolescence, or once they discover the various vices of the adult world, and it seems to be the rare case when a young starlet can overcome these hurdles and transition successfully into a career of grownup roles. Natalie Portman is one such success story: after making her debut as a 12-year-old in Luc Besson's Leon The Professional, Portman gradually took on more adult roles until she was playing everything from a young, widowed mother (Cold Mountain) to an emotionally manipulative stripper (Closer). This week, she stars alongside Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal in the family drama Brothers, so we felt it was the right time to take a look back at the extensive filmography of this young star to determine Natalie Portman's Best Movies.
10. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Before she was old enough to drive, Natalie Portman carried roles that called for her to be a hitman's apprentice, attempt suicide, and seduce Timothy Hutton; after all that, taking a part in the most eagerly anticipated movie of the late 20th century must have seemed relatively easy. And hey, let's be frank: The vagaries of green-screen acting aside, Portman's role as Queen Padmé Amidala probably was one of the least demanding gigs she's ever had, at least in terms of dramatic heavy lifting. Surrounded by gorgeous special effects, various digitally rendered space critters, and a script that was roundly criticized for living down to George Lucas' claim that The Phantom Menace was "a movie for 12-year-olds," all Portman had to do was look regal -- that old Star Wars magic did the rest. And despite its reputation as arguably the worst of the series, this installment lived up to the hype for a number of critics, including the Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum, who wrote, "Though I've been bored senseless by the Star Wars phenomenon for over two decades, I found The Phantom Menace something of a pleasant surprise."
9. Anywhere But Here
The Phantom Menace might have taken Portman into a galaxy far, far away in 1999, but she quickly returned to Earth with Wayne Wang's Anywhere but Here, an adaptation of the Mona Simpson novel about the struggles faced by a single mother (Susan Sarandon) and her teenage daughter (Portman, natch). Even this early in her career, Portman had a clear idea of what she was willing to do for a role; she famously turned down Anywhere after discovering the script contained a sex scene for her character, forcing Wang and screenwriter Alvin Sargent to conduct a rewrite. (All's well that ends well: the rewritten sequence was repeatedly singled out as one of the film's best.) Portman had already acted with some of Hollywood's finest at this point, but Anywhere placed her squarely toe to toe with Sarandon for pretty much the entirety of the film, and she emerged none the worse for wear. In the words of John R. McEwen of Film Quips Online, "Natalie Portman is my new hero."
8. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
She's made a lot of movies in a lot of different genres, but no matter how long she continues her acting career, it seems relatively certain that 2002's Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones will be the only film that gives us Natalie Portman wielding a laser gun on a distant planet and sharing screentime with characters with names like Poggle the Lesser. Fast-forwarding his saga ten years past The Phantom Menace enabled Lucas to up the action quotient considerably -- and as with The Empire Strikes Back, there's a darkness beneath Clones that helps lend a little extra heft to all the political intrigue and intergalactic derring-do. Portman's filmography might not scream "action heroine," but she can knock out a droid with the best of them, and her thespian bona fides were at least a small part of what led critics like the New York Post's Lou Lumenick to declare, "On a purely visceral level, Clones is a delightfully rousing, eye-popping, crowd-pleasing homage to Saturday-morning serials of the '30s and '40s."
7. Closer
Unlike a lot of child actresses, Natalie Portman didn't grow up playing characters that necessarily reflected her age; when you make your big-screen debut as a 12-year-old hitman's apprentice, no one's going to send you the script for, say, The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Still, Portman caused something of a tizzy when word got out that she'd be playing a stripper in Mike Nichols' Closer. The part, like the movie, ultimately ended up being far less titillating than some might have hoped; as he'd done with Carnal Knowledge nearly 25 years previous, Nichols took a potentially lurid premise and read between the lines, focusing instead on the human drama at its core. And while some lookie-loos might have been disappointed that Closer turned out to be a sexual drama devoid of sex, many critics were too busy appreciating Patrick Marber's script -- and a quartet of stellar performances from Portman, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, and Jude Law -- to notice. "Portman steals the show with an astonishingly layered performance as the spiky but vulnerable Alice," wrote Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall. "Even without the rest of the film's genius, she's worth the price of a ticket."
6. V for Vendetta
The famously cantankerous Alan Moore disavowed the Hollywood version of his graphic novel, taking issue with the way the Wachowski-produced V for Vendetta used the political subtext of the book -- which was written in the '80s -- to frame an argument against neoconservatism. And Moore probably had a point, too -- but as hard as it is to begrudge an author his criticism of an adaptation of his work, it's also easy to understand why the gripping, stylish Vendetta was a critical and commercial hit when it reached theaters in early 2006. James McTeigue's direction is at its most thrilling here, and the Wachowskis' script manages to incorporate thought-provoking themes with good old-fashioned action. And then there was Natalie Portman, who had her head shaved on camera for her role as Evey Hammond, the ordinary citizen driven to vigilanteism by a totalitarian political regime (as well as some remarkably persuasive speeches from a masked, yet still utterly charismatic, Hugo Weaving). V for Vendetta was so dark, and so unapologetically political, that it's still a little hard to believe it was a $100 million-plus hit -- but it certainly didn't hurt that it provoked eloquent praise from critics like Jonathan R. Perry of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, who wrote, "V screams loudly and long, with visceral, kinetic fury and with style to burn. It's so brazen, it's kind of brilliant."
BrianMN on 12-1-2009 01:50 PM
I WAS going to make a joke about Attack of the Clones not being in the list.
But it IS in the list. ??????
She deserved an Oscar just for being able to keep a straight face through the love scenes with Anakin the mannequin.
"I-love-you-Padme"
"My - heart- is -beating-for-you.......-Padme" LMAO!!!
C3PO showed more emotion.