THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN

My journey to see every movie featuring Meryl Streep continues. In Streep’s fourth film outing, she played Karen Traynor, a Louisiana lawyer whose family has been in politics for some time. The movie is The Seduction of Joe Tynan which was released in 1979.  It is an often-overlooked piece of Meryl's library of work... which is a shame.

BEFORE AND AFTER

The biggest takeaway from Before And After is that great actors don’t guarantee a great, or even good, movie. This 2012 film stars Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson as upper-class parents (the Ryans) in a small town where their son is being accused of murder.

DARK MATTER

Director Chen Shi-Zeng presents the haunting tale of Liu Xing in his 2008 film, Dark Matter. Xing is a brilliant Chinese doctoral student who is afforded an opportunity to do research work in the United States. Xing dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and eagerly dives into pleasing his mentor, Professor Reiser (Aidan Quinn in an extremely well-nuanced performance). Meryl Streep rounds out the cast as Johanna Silver. Silver is a wealthy and well-intentioned donor at the University where Xing is doing his research, and she befriends him as he attempts to acclimate to the many differences of living in the United States versus China.

While Streep and Quinn both give outstanding performances, for me this film was carried by Ye Liu portraying the eager and devoted protagonist, Liu Xing. He is on equal footing with his elder co-stars and steals the camera and the viewer’s heart with his wide-eyed enthusiasm, naivety, and immense pride.

A CRY IN THE DARK

I consider Meryl Streep to be one of the greatest film actors of all time. It was because of this that I set a goal (in 2022) of viewing all her performances which I hadn’t seen already. A Cry In The Dark (1988) reaffirmed my opinion of her acting prowess. What an outstanding performance.

THE LAUNDROMAT

Originally posted January 28, 2022

I watched The Laundromat (2019) a couple of weeks ago but found I needed to mull it over before trying to comment. At the film's core, it exposes how the wealthiest people in the world are able to stay that way by filtering money through offshore bank accounts and shell companies. It is based on true events and characters that were exposed in 2016 when the "Panama Papers" were published. The way these privileged people are able to avoid paying taxes and how they prey on the vulnerable and unsuspecting is obscene. And it continues to this day.

MARVIN'S ROOM

 

This time around the film is Marvin's Room, released in 1996. The story of two sisters who have been estranged for over 20 years. Bessie (Diane Keaton) is single, lives in Florida, and is helping to care for her bedridden father and his aging sister. Lee (Meryl Streep) moved to Ohio, had two children, and worked to be independent with a career in cosmetology. After decades apart, Lee discovers that Bessie has been diagnosed with leukemia (the same disease that took their mother from them) and needs a bone marrow transplant. With kids in tow, Bessie heads to Florida and the dysfunction of all the characters is laid bare as they attempt to establish their own sense of family again.

SUFFRAGETTE

In 2022 I set a film goal to watch every Meryl Streep movie I hadn't yet seen. Of the 59 films in which she had appeared to date, I started the year with 39 I would need to take in. With my viewing of 2015’s Suffragette, that number is now down to 38!  Suffragette was selected randomly from my list, and it turns out to be an ironic choice since Ms. Streep’s on-screen time amounts to just 4 minutes!