One of her generation's finest talents, Amy Adams celebrates her birthday today! In recognition, here are my five favourite performances from the multi-Academy Award nominee (who very honestly should have a mantlepiece full of goldware by now).
Honourable mentions must go to Junebug, Her, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Enchanted, Big Eyes and Julie & Julia.
5. American Hustle
A flashy ensemble in a splashy drama, American Hustle is known today mostly for its luxurious costumes and excessive collection of wigs - but it is Amy Adams who provides David O'Russell's comedy-drama with a much-needed beating heart. Starring alongside Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence, all of whom earned Oscar nominations, greed, money and corruption take the thematic spotlight in this scandalous wire-tapping semi-true story, but the empathy infused into Adam's dazzling portrayal of the multi-dimensional Sydney Prosser brings a humanity to this story of desperation to survive and thrive from the American dream that resonates more deeply than the surface level reading and the bold caricature on parade may indicate.
4. Nocturnal Animals
An intensely wound turn that in retrospect feels like a precursor to the performance that tops this list, Nocturnal Animals sees Adams achieve some of her darkest work to date. Like Adams' Susan Morrow, the film is a stylish picture with a seedy underbelly, one relying on memory and the distorted lines between fantasy and reality to fuel a narrative that Adams is mostly in charge of selling - and boy does she convince. Belying the character's professional success with her personal dissatisfaction, Adams' unravelling is superbly measured, cracked just enough to see beyond the facade held up to those around her, one that could only be mastered by an actress who fully understands her character.
3. Doubt
A major component of what may be one of the finest ensemble assembled, Amy Adams goes toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's stage play, Doubt, which also stars Viola Davis. Doubt represents a crucial turn in Adams' career, marking her transition from recognisable name to serious talent; her performance, while still maintaining the sunny optimism that informed her work in the likes of Drop Dead Gorgeous, Junebug and Enchanted, it is enriched with the richer shades and greater depth the beautifully ambiguous screenplay allow her to explore. To shine around much bigger personalities and louder characters demonstrates Adams' carefully-calibrated nuance magnificently, becoming the human tether in a hard-hitting, dialogue-heavy world.
2. Arrival
Amy Adams missing out on an Oscar nomination for her performance in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is one of the most shocking and inexcusable snubs in the Academy's history. Breathtaking and full of the vulnerability that certifies her as such an exemplary character actress, her turn in Arrival easily ranks amongst the decade's finest female performances. A strong screenplay is always the first building block of any performance and one with the poignancy of Arrival could never really stumble, but Adams lifts it to new heights with such emotionally magnetic work that steadies us in the face of prodigious, philosophical themes.
1. Sharp Objects
Amy Adams stars alongside Patricia Clarkson and Eliza Scanlen in the HBO miniseries adapted from Gillian Flynn's novel, Sharp Objects, which is - from beginning to end - a filmmaking masterclass. An intoxicating slow-burn, Adams traverses the oppressive atmosphere of the town Camille Preaker was born in, the grim mystery that leads to her return and the complex family dynamic that caused her to flee with such razor-sharp precision and unsettling suspense that it is shocking how willingly we return week-after-week. But return we do, for as unbearable as it can sometimes be, it's totally, unfathomably compelling.
Leading us through the shocking twist and turns while burrowing deep into backstories and relationships, Sharp Objects would fall to pieces without an astonishing lead performance; its examination of trauma and abuse in all its forms too hard to swallow for some. But with Amy Adams delivering the best work of her career to date, wrought with an unmatched intensity that presents a flawed, fascinating character as someone whose happy ending you root for (no matter how unattainable it feels), you are sunk into her journey with a fervour that makes it difficult let go of the story, the character or the performer that brought it all to life.
It is as close to perfect as you can ever get.