Glenn Vance

Is Laura Linney a Good Bad Actress or a Bad Good Actress?

Laura Lin­ney is, accord­ing to many peo­ple who know more than I do, sup­pos­edly a good actress,¹ but it’s hard for me to see what all the fuss is about. When I see her I think she’s either just alright in a role or down­right wrong for the part. It’s prob­a­bly just me, but she seems to have this snooty arro­gance to her, like if you met her at a party in New York or L.A. and you didn’t know about some oppressed Iran­ian poet or an obscure the­atri­cal ref­er­ence she men­tions she might just stop talk­ing with you and turn away. Like I said, maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t get her.

In her favor, she’s been in some fine movies but that doesn’t mean that she’s been fine in them. Sev­eral cases in point I’ll go over here — Dave, The Tru­man Show and Breach. Let’s break ‘em down.

I loved and con­tinue to love Dave. Why wouldn’t I love it, given that it was the first “date” I went on with my wife in col­lege? In Dave, Kevin Kline is thrust into the role of Pres­i­dent of the United States when the man (the real Pres­i­dent) he was dou­bling for has a mas­sive stroke. Lin­ney plays the Oval Office sec­re­tary that the real Pres­i­dent was hav­ing an affair with when he had the stroke and her “fawn­ing” and “relief” when the “Pres­i­dent” returns to office ring hol­low. You can tell that Dave is a lit­tle freaked out by her reac­tion and with good rea­son — he has no idea who she is and she’s chomp­ing at the scenery. Not a good choice for a rather impor­tant plot point.

I also love The Tru­man Show and still think that Jim Car­rey has the mak­ings of an actual liv­ing breath­ing actor in him, if he can just get away from main­stream fare like Fun with Dick and Jane or Bruce Almighty. But in The Tru­man Show, Lin­ney once again rears her bad-actor head, this time in the role of Meryl, Carrey’s tele­vi­sion wife. She’s over-the-top skit­tish and not lik­able at all, and maybe that’s the point, but it doesn’t make her sym­pa­thetic in any way when she breaks down while Car­rey inter­ro­gates her in their kitchen about his sit­u­a­tion. The only good that could have come from that scene would have been if Car­rey had killed Meryl with that jar of Moco­coa she was holding.

And what can you say about her in Breach? It wasn’t a big money maker, but it wasn’t a bad movie at all, far from it. It was bet­ter than I thought it would be, but Lin­ney plays tough-as-nails FBI agent Kate Bur­roughs, and she wasn’t a very good choice for the part. Get some­one else, Holly Hunter, Jodie Fos­ter, just don’t pick Lin­ney to talk tough to Ryan Phillippe. It’s flat and silly and we know that she’s doing the one thing she doesn’t want you to know she’s doing : act­ing. She was just wrong for the part.

In her favor though she’s done some won­der­ful (or at least, good) films also where she too has been won­der­ful. You Can Count on Me, where she plays big brother to the way-cool Mark Ruf­falo, is excel­lent, and she is too. She’s also great in Love Actu­ally as the pathet­i­cally lonely Sarah who pines away for Rodrigo San­toro. She hits all the right notes as she tries to woo San­toro and take care of her men­tally imbal­anced brother. And while it wasn’t (any) good, The Life of David Gale fea­tured her as an anti-death penalty advo­cate and she was very good. It always seems that the parts she’s best in are where she’s a pathetic lit­tle crea­ture try­ing to get by in the world or fight for a higher cause. Unfor­tu­nately, you don’t get too far in Hol­ly­wood play­ing the same char­ac­ter over and over.²

When Linney’s good and cast in the right char­ac­ter she’s great, but when she seems com­pletely out of her league it’s embar­rass­ing to watch. I just don’t “get” Laura Lin­ney. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

1. She’s been nom­i­nated for two Acad­emy Awards for Best Actress and Best Sup­port­ing Actress as well as won many other act­ing awards. [↩]
2. Or maybe you can. Case in point — Robin Williams. [↩]

11. July 2007 by Glenn Vance
Categories: Movies | 2 comments