![]() When her daughter, Clem ( KiKi Payne), reveals that she’s pregnant by her lover, Fonny ( Stephan James), she’s not angry or even particularly surprised. As Sharon Rivers, the mother of a Black woman whose boyfriend has been wrongfully convicted of rape, King is a font of maternal warmth. Regina King already had two Emmys under her belt for American Crime and Seven Seconds it was only a matter of time before the Academy came knocking. It didn’t repeat Moonlight’s Cinderella run for Best Picture (although it should have been at least nominated), but it did provide an opportunity to recognize one of the industry’s most reliable actresses. The fact that one can draw a straight line from here to Cats doesn’t help.īarry Jenkins followed up his instant-classic Moonlight with a romantic, heartbreaking adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. But showy, self-destructive performances shouldn’t be encouraged to the extent that they are, and the teeth-gnashing melodrama doesn’t linger as it ought to. The result is undeniably effective: Hathaway is an excellent actress, and it’s impossible to look away from her even before the camera locks in on her face. Because of Tom Hooper’s decision to have the actors sing live, she performed Fantine’s signature song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” in a one-take close-up, sobbing and wailing with a throat full of phlegm. She went method, eating less than 500 calories a day and staying away from her husband to get in the right mindset. She played one of the most important characters in a beloved musical, a tragic prostitute dying of tuberculosis. Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine in Les Misérables was the biggest, broadest swing for the Oscars fences in the past ten years. The phrase “Oscar bait” gets thrown around carelessly these days, but there are times when no other phrase will do.
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