Amy Adams and the age of innocence

The 2005 film Juneb­ug was, at one point, des­tined to be the untime­ly swan­song of the actor Amy Adams. At thir­ty years old, she’d been promised the moon with mem­o­rable roles in the likes of 1999 beau­ty pageant com­e­dy Drop Dead Gor­geous and smallscreen behe­moth, The West Wing. Every­thing she did was a promised big break. But lit­tle made an impres­sion, from TV shows being rel­e­gat­ed to the Fri­day night death slot after a hand­ful of episodes, to film-defin­ing bit parts that just didn’t quite work out.

When she played can­dy striper nurse Bren­da in 2002 chase com­e­dy Catch Me If You Can, direc­tor Steven Spiel­berg sang her prais­es. In a 2008 Van­i­ty Fair pro­file, he said: ​“that was the part that should have launched her career”. By the time she land­ed in North Car­oli­na for Juneb­ug, she’d made a deci­sion – make the film (which at that time seemed des­tined for very lit­tle) and then move on. But some­thing or some­one had oth­er plans. She went to an audi­tion, just a face in the crowd and anoth­er num­ber among hun­dreds of oth­er actors. She won the lead role in Disney’s live-action fairy­tale, Enchant­ed. Com­bine that with a mirac­u­lous Oscar nom­i­na­tion, and that long-await­ed big break had final­ly arrived.

Adams, fair skinned, big eyed, with flam­ing red hair (dyed from her nat­ur­al blonde), felt like she’d been dropped in from a more inno­cent time of triple-threat stars and musi­cal-dri­ven cin­e­ma. Remem­ber, this was the era of Angeli­na, Jen­nifer and Julia; of Lara Croft and Rachel Green, where roman­tic come­dies owned the box office. Chica­go had won Best Pic­ture, but the cachet of super­mod­el-ready stars didn’t have the char­ac­ter to car­ry the musi­cal revival flag. Drew Bar­ry­more, fresh from Charlie’s Angels, topped Forbes’s list of high­est paid actress­es, with $22 million.

In an age of stat­uesque action stars and foot­ball wives, Adams was Rita Hayworth’s play­ful­ness and vigour mixed with Audrey Hepburn’s inno­cence and shy­ness – think The Nun’s Sto­ry, Roman Hol­i­day or Sab­ri­na. She was even thrown into a film that felt like it was ripped from cin­e­ma screens six­ty years ear­li­er – the musi­cal dram­e­dy Miss Pet­ti­grew Lives for a Day, where she plays a scat­ter­brained Amer­i­can actress attempt­ing to break into the busi­ness, as well as nav­i­gate rela­tion­ships with three very dif­fer­ent men. Vin­tage-inspired pho­to­shoots ran amok, as they would for Jes­si­ca Chas­tain, anoth­er seem­ing­ly overnight-suc­cess red­head, half a decade lat­er, hailed with affec­ta­tions of being oth­er­world­ly and some­how more inno­cent as a result. It was a wel­come throw­back for the moviego­ing public.

Juneb­ug under­stand­ably staked the claim for such state­ments in regards to Adams. The first shot of her in the film, her excit­ed, bug-eyed vis­age fills the frame. She’s elat­ed and unable to sit down out of sheer excite­ment from the immi­nent arrival of exot­ic out-of-town vis­i­tors. She plays Ash­ley, the heav­i­ly preg­nant and unre­lent­ing­ly opti­mistic sis­ter-in-law of an art deal­er (Alessan­dro Nivola) who left for Chica­go and hasn’t looked back until his fiancée, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), chas­es an out­sider artist close to home.

Ash­ley is inno­cence per­son­i­fied and some­what vir­ginal despite her sit­u­a­tion, almost beg­ging ques­tions as to whether the preg­nan­cy is some kind of strange, immac­u­late con­cep­tion. Made­line is out of place in a world of pot luck din­ners and so much space. She betrays effort­less calm and, in reac­tion to the rev­e­la­tion that she was born in Japan, Ash­ley breathes dis­be­liev­ing­ly ​“you were not!”, as if out­side of North Car­oli­na were Mid­dle Earth. Ash­ley and her hus­band (Ben­jamin McKen­zie) look like they should be bare­ly out of play­ing house, let alone buy­ing and fill­ing one of their own.

Ashley’s sto­ry is inno­cence lost, a mode in which Adams is well-versed. The suc­cess of the film depends on the grad­ual waver­ing of Ashley’s sun­ny façade, the small cracks reveal­ing some­thing much dark­er and sad­der under­neath. Adams per­fect­ly imbues Ash­ley with shades of grey behind the shim­mer­ing light. Like Audrey Hep­burn before her, she played a novi­tiate – the height of sub­mis­sive inno­cence – in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, one who’s close-knit world is rocked by hor­rif­ic rev­e­la­tions of sex­u­al abuse.

And in Enchant­ed, her image as one of pure inno­cence is cement­ed only fur­ther as she plays a Dis­ney princess who flut­ters out of her car­toon land and into the harsh, dirty real­i­ty of New York City. Cutesi­ness was the word – after all, Bren­da, before she’s left heart­bro­ken by Leonar­do DiCaprio’s con-artist, had pig­tails and braces, just in case one hadn’t got­ten the idea.

Giselle, Sis­ter James, and Bren­da are a few names on the laun­dry list of Adams’ almost-adults, wives, and end­less sup­port­ing roles, most of whom are pushed into the shad­ows by pow­er­ful and (most­ly) angry men. She is knocked around by a tyran­ni­cal hus­band in The Fight­er and Big Eyes, left to find love in a com­put­er in Her. As the bare­foot-and-preg­nant wife of Philip Sey­mour Hoffman’s cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Mas­ter, she plays the brains of the oper­a­tion, which comes as a wel­come change.

But she still exists in some­one else’s world. She earned her first lead act­ing nom­i­na­tion at the Oscars for Amer­i­can Hus­tle, play­ing a con artist who feels more com­fort­able in a con­stant game of dress-up than in real­i­ty. Yet she was still a pawn in Chris­t­ian Bale and Bradley Cooper’s non­sen­si­cal pow­er games. Even Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, where she plays suc­cess­ful artist Mar­garet Keane, claimed to be about her. In real­i­ty, the direc­tor seemed hell bent on wrestling the film from her at every turn.

It’s in Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival that she expe­ri­ences a com­ing-of-age. She is omnipresent through­out the film, absent only for short moments. She is the cen­tre of her own sto­ry. She plays a lin­guist chal­lenged with the task of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with aliens that come to earth in mys­te­ri­ous pods, while also ensur­ing the world doesn’t fly into a self-destruc­tive pan­ic. Quite lit­er­al­ly, she’s in charge of the future of, and unit­ing, a world more divid­ed than ever. Final­ly, she com­mands the screen for large­ly only her­self, the emo­tion­al and intel­lec­tu­al core of a film, her voice and gaze allowed to be sure and steady.

As Doc­tor Louise Banks in Arrival, she gives arguably her most intrigu­ing per­for­mance since play­ing Ash­ley all those years ago. She’s final­ly play­ing an author­i­ty fig­ure, the smartest per­son in the room at last, but she’s also final­ly giv­en the com­plex nar­ra­tive pre­vi­ous­ly only afford­ed to the men she supported.

The film ini­tial­ly focus­es on her mys­te­ri­ous grief that pro­vides the fas­ci­nat­ing and mov­ing dual­i­ty of the film. Her life feeds into her work, and vice-ver­sa. It informs her past, present and future. When the impli­ca­tions of the heart­break­ing under­cur­rent are revealed, so is the true won­der of her per­for­mance. It requires her to bal­ance both head and heart, the sci­en­tif­ic and emo­tion­al, ratio­nal and irra­tional real­i­ties of the situation.

Arrival is sole­ly Doc­tor Banks’ sto­ry, deliv­ered and con­trolled by her. When her face occu­pies the frame (it nev­er fills it, anoth­er sign of agency), it’s to show lone­li­ness, despair, a com­plex his­to­ry that has wit­nessed the world’s hor­ror and beau­ty. It’s the oppo­site of inno­cent sub­mis­sion, of Brenda’s pig­tails and braces and Giselle’s lov­able naiveté. Ash­ley may have mar­velled that there was a world beyond South Car­oli­na; but ten years lat­er, Doc­tor Banks has final­ly been allowed to see it all.