THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSTREEPS: "ADAPTATION" V. "KRAMER V. KRAMER"

* = Oscar nominated // ** = Oscar won

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally, finally here. 

Reflecting on the last TWO MONTHS of my life that have been devoted to this Madness (I began this endeavor on March 4th, and am finishing it May 1st), I am realizing just how much I've learned about acting. I wish I'd done something like this in ~theatre school~ because it's taught me exactly what I value in a performance, and it's not exactly what I expected.

I definitely got my roots started in the sexy allure of The Method: it wasn't "real acting" unless you Totally Transformed, unless you were Literally Unrecognizable, and most of all, unless it Physically And Emotionally Scarred You. I thought ~REAL ART~ was supposed to hurt, was supposed to cost you. Like an ancient god you had a to pay a price to in the form of a human sacrifice. 

But watching some 30 Meryl movies in 40 days taught me this simply was not the case. As much as I acknowledge the skill that goes into it, I didn't care for Meryl With An Accent. It was an extraordinary an achievement to give such an emotionally naked performance under a literal prosthetic MASK in The Iron Lady, but it was by no means my favorite, and I'll probably never watch it again. 

Part of my early deification of The Method probably had a lot to do with my utter disdain for actors who basically just played themselves in every role - the Cameron Diazes of the world, or the Tom Cruises. How can you call that "acting?"

But when it really came down to the last few brackets, I found that that's what I was truly searching for in each performance: where was Meryl? I didn't want to go hunting for her under layers of accents and prosthetics and "disappearing into the role." I wanted to see MERYL, in all her glory. I wanted to see a different version of Meryl, for sure - Meryl as a mother abandoning her child, Meryl as a drug addict falling in love - but I still wanted to see her. 

When I think of Meryl's acting, I think of: Resilience. Roots. A strong foundation. Powerful. Graceful. Vulnerable, but never weak. An excellent bitch. Capable of selfishness, but she always feels the cost of it. Nuanced. Layers. An internal monologue that goes on for pages and pages. Intelligent. Intentional. Empathy. 
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Next time I do a bracket - AND IT WON'T BE FOR A FEW MONTHS SO DON'T GET TOO EXCITED, THIS WAS EXHAUSTING - I am definitely going to match up the films at random, because I found that going by decade proved too costly. Like many actors, Meryl did a lot of her best work in chunks of time - you can't expect an actor to do an entire decade of dramas and not follow it up with a decade of Hallmark movies and comedies. 

If I could do this again, or spare the casual viewer hours and hours of sub-optimal Meryl, these would be my Cheat Sheets:
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Who Should've Been in the Final Four: 
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1) The Deer Hunter
2) Kramer v. Kramer
3) Adaptation
​4) August: Osage County

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Top Ten Performances:

1) The Deer Hunter
2) Kramer v. Kramer
3) Sophie's Choice
4) Silkwood
5) She-Devil
6) Postcards from the Edge
7) Adaptation
8) The Devil Wears Prada
9) The Iron Lady
10) August: Osage County

​Runners up: French Lieutenant's Woman, Death Becomes Her,
​A Cry in the Dark

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Best Films:

1) The Deer Hunter
2) Kramer v. Kramer
3) Death Becomes Her
4) Postcards from the Edge
5) The Hours
6) Adaptation
7) Doubt
8) August: Osage County

​Runners up: French Lieutenant's Woman, Manhattan, She-Devil 

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Best Accent:
Sophie's Choice

Best Costumes:
Out of Africa

Best Music:
The Hours

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And yes, all of this is just avoiding the painful inevitable. I don't want to lose friends. I don't want to disappoint whoever the fuck has actually been reading this. I don't want you to forever question my good taste. 

Here, watch this 20 minute Meryl Streep documentary instead, while I muster up the courage to announce the winner: 
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That was pretty great, right? Shout out to Be Kind Rewind for putting it together, subscribe to their channel or whatever.

OKAY. Okay. The time has come. 

I have deliberated about this with extreme intention. I used exhaustive analytical comparison. I debated and did research. 

But ultimately, if I'm being honest, the moment I saw this movie - or rather, the moment I saw this particular scene - I knew it was going to be the winner. 

For me, Adaptation is the culmination of all of Meryl's strengths as an actor: her vulnerability and her resilience. Bitch Meryl and Ugly Meryl. Hints of Scrappy Meryl. Major #BigDickEnergy Meryl. 

There is a moment in the film where Meryl's character has essentially thrown away her whole life to take a chance on this toothless, low-class man (an extraordinary Chris Cooper) to show her the extremely rare Ghost Orchid. She trudges through the waist-deep mud of the swamps - a painful metaphor for what she's doing with her personal life - to get to this flower that's supposed to have made it all worth it. 

And her fucking face when she sees it:

Disappointment. Utter and abject disappointment. Like a child finding out Santa Claus isn't real. Like a young adult finally accepting that God doesn't speak to you. Like a woman getting her heart broken for the first time. 

THAT. RIGHT THERE. THAT IS WHAT DID IT FOR ME.

Yes, part of it can be attributed to the exceptional screenplay, but I literally cannot imagine another actor doing this role justice. I simply cannot. In all fairness, another actor could've damn near matched her role in Kramer. Or The Deer Hunter. 

But you will never convince me otherwise that another actor could've done what she did - gone where she went - felt what she felt - and shown it with such MOTHERFUCKING EXQUISITE SUBTLETY - like Meryl Streep does in Adaptation.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY. WE HAVE THE WINNER OF MERYL GODDAMN MADNESS.  
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ADAPTATION
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