Julianne Moore had already won an Emmy for her work in television by the time Hollywood caught up with her. A supporting role in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) received stand-out reviews, but her real breakthrough came in The Fugitive (1993), where she played a doctor suspicious of Harrison Ford’s strange behaviour. Utilitarian in blue scrubs, and on screen for less than five minutes, Moore’s resolute presence still registered within the confines of a ‘wrong man’ pursuit. She stood out again in a fine ensemble cast in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), a portmanteau of Raymond Carver stories transplanted to LA. In one scene, a marital argument with co-star Matthew Modine, Moore appeared naked from the waist down, drawing accusations of prurience on the part of Altman. But Moore was undaunted by the level of intimacy the scene was really about, and, as she’s repeatedly shown, emboldened by challenging material. The underwriter of her own risks, Moore early on established a pattern of working that continues to this day: roles in Hollywood movies offset by candid portraits of troubled women in films by auteur directors.
Vanya On 42nd Street (1994) began as an Andre Gregory/Wallace Shawn theatre project in 1989, but was transformed by Louis Malle into an unusual hybrid: a rehearsal of ‘Uncle Vanya’ that turns into a full-on performance. Moore won Best Actress at the Boston Society of Film Critics’ Awards, as well as the attention of a new wave of American filmmakers. In Todd Haynes’s Safe (1995), a suburban, existential horror film, Moore seemed to collapse in on herself as her character succumbed to ailments real and imaginary; while in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997), she was maternal and bereft as a 70s porn star in the San Fernando Valley. The Coen brothers were next, with The Big Lebowski (1998), where Moore infiltrated the Dude’s (Jeff Bridges) bowling pin dreams. Of all Magnolia’s (1999) desperate characters, Moore’s anxious young wife seemed the most attuned to the film’s looping hysteria. Besides, her presence in Anderson’s sprawling LA story acknowledged the film’s debt to Short Cuts—though this time Moore remained in a fur coat throughout and still appeared naked. She was glamourous, God-fearing and guilt-ridden in The End of the Affair (1999), and perfectly at home in the Nova Scotia setting of The Shipping News (2001). But her finest performances of the new decade came in The Hours (2002) and Far from Heaven (2002), where Moore encapsulated the despair of two 1950s housewives, and in the process was nominated for Oscars in leading and supporting categories.
A ‘supporting actor’ in the best sense of the term, Moore is by now such an established figure that her presence immediately enriches a project, whether mainstream or ‘independent’. Soulful, incandescent and fearless, Moore is once again in contention for Best Actress for her performance in Still Alice (2014).
—Mick McAloon
Running From The Reels 