Best Actress 2013: Elizabeth Olsen, Thérèse

Two years ago, Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of the infamous twin business tycoons who got their start on TV's Full House, made quite an impression at Sundance in her film debut (!) Martha Marcy May Marlene.  The film's vagueness and unassumingly creepy flavor was a favorite of some, while its cryptic nature and uneven structure was lost on others.  Most people were in agreement, though: Olsen was outstanding.  She was shortlisted for an Oscar and had it not been such a competitive year, she might have made it in.  In interviews, she seems very sweet-natured, intelligent, and grounded.  She has gone on to work quite repeatedly since then, having opened the horror remake Silent House in 2012 and played the romantic lead in Josh Radnor's Liberal Arts.  She has also taken supporting roles in films starring such film legends like Jane Fonda and Sigourney Weaver.  This year, she has bit roles as Edie Parker in Beat movie Kill Your Darlings and in Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy, as well as a colead opposite Dakota Fanning in Very Good Girls.  She has also signed on to the dubious reboot of the Godzilla franchise, directed by a man with only one feature under his belt, 2010's cult VOD-hit Monsters.  Part of the charm being the cheesiness of the original, is there really room for it to strive to anything more than as pointless as the Raymond Burr and Matthew Broderick versions?  Anyhow, the girl needs commercial exposure, and hopefully, she will reap some rewards here.  Who knows, maybe third is the charm with the rebooting the franchise.  Or is it more?

In the meanwhile, she has Charlie Stratton's adaptation of soap opera writer Neal Bell's play from the Émile Zola novel Thérèse Raquin.  In this romantic thriller, Olsen will play the title character whose past criminal choices come back to haunt her ala Hamlet.  The cast includes Jessica Lange (who replaced Glenn Close), Oscar Isaac, Matt Lucas, and Tom Felton.  Filmed in Hungary and Serbia, the impressive crew includes composer Gabriel Yared (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain), cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister (The Deep Blue Sea), editors Celia Haining and Paul Tothill (Atonement), production designer Uli Hanisch (Cloud Atlas, The International), and costume designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud (Cloud Atlas).  Note that many of these artists have worked consistently with certain auteurs (Anthony Minghella, Joe Wright, Tom Tykwer).  LD Entertainment (Albert Nobbs, Biutiful, Silent House) will handle distribution.  It will be interesting to see how Olsen fares in this period role, which had at one time both Kate Winslet and then Jessica Biel (!) attached, as everything she has done up until now has been so contemporary.  Fingers crossed.  Love this girl and want nothing more to see her succeed.

Her role in the Oldboy remake will probably be supporting and Lee doesn't have a good track record for Oscar attention, though it was wise for Olsen to work with a director who has helped changed the commercial and artistic landscape of film over the decades he has been working.  Both Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska turned down the role.  The cast includes Josh Brolin, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Imperioli.  Mark Protosevich (The Cell, I Am Legend, Thor) adapted the movie from Garon Tsuchiya's story of Nobuaki Minegishi's comic.  Lee had his editor Barry Alexander Brown cut the film.  Steven McQueen's DOP Sean Bobbitt, who has The Place Beyond the Pines and Seven Years a Slave coming out, did the camerawork.  Bruce Hornsby (!) who has previously collaborated with Lee No, that would be Gabriel Yared (Anthony Minghella's guy) who composed the score.  Ben Affleck's production designer Sharon Seymour was also on board.  Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm, Amistad) designed the costumes.  Filmed this passed Fall in New Orleans, newish distributor Film District (Drive, Looper) is set to release movie on October 11th.

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