All the actresses' performances in Bladerunner 2049 were amazing. (minor spoilers)

Finally got to see Bladerunner 2049. Definitely a movie I will want to see again; i think it was a fantastic homage to the original without trying too hard to mimic the movie in detail -- it stands on its own.

One thing that stood out to me leaving the theatre, was both the strength of the female lead characters and their underlying performances.

Ana de Armas' role could easily be a throw away; eye candy to fill a void in K's life. But both the role itself and her performance speak to an evolving empathy, and a subtlety to her interaction with Gosling. While she's bought for purpose, you're left with the impression of the reality of her relationship. Romantic chemistry is hard to film at the best of times, the layered complexities of the characters and the nature of their relationship make it doubly so.

Robin Wright has been honing her cold, direct manner on House of Cards for several years now but she takes it to another level in this movie. She's believable as the hard nosed, blunt and efficient police lieutenant. Her sentimentality towards K is purely on a transactional level, even the softer moments are played convincingly without betraying her character's world view.

And then we come to Sylvia Hoek's Luv. Her performance, at first, appears to be based in detached sentimentality but it becomes chilling. She revels in her successes, implying an ego, and she is eager to please, but utterly lacking any empathy. We've seen robotic / detached performances in the past (Alice Vikander being recently notable), but Hoeks' is perhaps the most memorable performance in the whole movie.

All 3 characters are well written, performance, and logically consistent. While Deckard and K are somewhat flat, neutral observers of their own circumstances (consistent with Film Noir), its the women that drive the plot and the action.

For me, they 'make' the movie.

Submitted October 25, 2017 at 07:02PM by dbcanuck http://ift.tt/2y6CZk0