Jessica Chastain

Miss Sloane

A Most Violent Year

This week’s Double Feature Thursday was all about the red-headed show-stopper Jessica Chastain—don’t you dare confuse her for Bryce Dallas Howard or Amy Adams or Isla Fisher. We love to highlight and celebrate passionate and daring actresses here at Double Feature Thursday, so we would be remiss in not showcasing the unflinchingly stellar Jessica Chastain—a woman who could play CIA agent, a lobbyist, and an incestuous ghost and still be the most lovable character. Tonight’s films were just glimpses into her impressive filmography, but both presented us with a style and an attitude that only Jessica could provide. On a scale from Molly’s Game to The Big Short, Miss Sloane falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to plot comprehension. I can only speak for myself, but I can explain everything that happens in Molly’s Game and I don’t know anyone who can perfectly articulate the density and verbosity of The Big Short in layman's terms—though I encourage you to try to do so as charmingly as Ryan Gosling did. Miss Sloane featured a peak Jessica Chastain: commanding a room and almost yelling, but ultimately selling the hell out of whatever she’s saying. No one can portray a ruthlessly ambitious girl boss with connections to seedy individuals quite like Jessica Chastain. While I highly doubt there are any lobbyists who are as captivating (or effective) as Miss Sloane, I’d bet there are many who are as diabolical as she was, which makes the movie all the more believable. She is all at once barbaric and tantalizing, as always, and yet there are plenty of surprises in this movie that I never saw coming. I could go on and on about Jessica Chastain’s resolute ability to lead a film, but I have to break down this eclectic and surprisingly star-studded cast. It was honestly kind of hard to watch Michael Stuhlbarg (Elio’s dad) play a bad guy, even with his JFK/Mayor Quimby accent. It was nice seeing Gugu Mbatha-Raw in a big role and she delivered, as did the statuesque Mark Strong. And Jake Lacy as the kind and honest himbo sex worker was almost as shocking and as pleasing as the moment they casually revealed Christine Baranski. Every turn and reveal in this movie was unexpected and thrilling, and never felt like too much. This must be what Inception was supposed to feel like. Unfortunately, A Most Violent Year was lacking almost all of the glamorous savagery that I expect from a Chastain affair. How can a movie have Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, highway robbery, scamming, high-speed chases, and mafia implications, and still turn out to be kinda boring? Firstly, there was not nearly enough Jessica Chastain, and not enough time spent getting to know any of our characters before thrusting them into some high stakes that somehow didn’t feel high enough. Despite its tense plot, the tension really wasn’t felt until the last half hour of the film, and even then I struggled to sympathize with or care for the film’s protagonists. On top of this there were some weirdly frustrating camera angles and an overall dark-tinted filter that covered the whole film, making me feel disconnected from what I was watching. The best part of this movie was Jessica Chastain’s nails—gloriously and ridiculously long acrylics that moved the film along better than the film’s own rising action. I was sold on the early 80s NYC aesthetic and the promise of money, madness, and mayhem, but there were only small tastes of this. As my sister and I both lamented when the film finished, we wondered why this couldn’t have just been American Hustle? Somewhere, in another reality or universe, there is a version of this movie where Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac lead this film together as equals, and every business transaction they partake in involves a smoldering Oscar Isaac pinning down some racketeer while Jessica Chastain keeps her nails at the goon’s neck and delivers a powerful and chilling speech about how they’re not going to be fucked with. I guess, essentially, I need a version of Bonnie and Clyde with Chastain and Isaac because their respective and collective power is something I need to experience in its entirety—not just in whatever sample size A Most Violent Year features.