Actors whose characters battle demons -- think Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" or Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose" -- get to thrash around. Performers who are playing the larger-than-life -- picture Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" or Helen Mirren in "The Queen" -- are encouraged to be, well, larger than life.
Kristin Scott Thomas faced a more complicated challenge with "I've Loved You So Long." She had to be nothing.
Scott Thomas was cast in the French drama as a woman trying to vanish emotionally, someone who wants to be left alone, a person who appears to have given up hope.
"It's not that she doesn't want anything to happen," Scott Thomas explains. "It's that she doesn't care what happens. I don't think she is depressed. She is just waiting for the bus to run her over -- and she's not going to do anything about it."
The irony is that in taking on such an inward-looking part, Scott Thomas has brought as much notice to her acting as anything she has done since 1996's "The English Patient," for which she was nominated for the lead actress Oscar.
"I've Loved You So Long" caps a remarkable year for the 48-year-old actress, who was born in England but now lives in France and speaks the local language fluently.
This spring, audiences made the French thriller "Tell No One" (in which Scott Thomas costars) one of the year's most popular art-house hits. In October, Scott Thomas reprised her leading role as the vain actress Arkadina in New York's restaging of the London production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull," among the best-reviewed productions of the Broadway season.
And now comes "I've Loved You So Long," the debut directorial effort from screenwriter and novelist Philippe Claudel.
In it, Scott Thomas plays Juliette Fontaine, who has just been released from prison after serving 15 years for a crime that is neither openly discussed nor immediately disclosed. After her discharge, Juliette moves in with her sister, Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), who proves far more accommodating than Lea's fearful husband, Luc (Serge Hazanavicius).
No matter how elegant Scott Thomas may appear in person or on stage, in this movie she is miles from movie-star pretty. Her demeanor, like her hair and her clothes, is lifeless, flat. It's not that she's unsympathetic; rather, she's almost inert.
