Some of the best acting has been in movies which for one reason or another I couldn’t cover here (the timing of press screenings plays havoc with deadlines), but which you should look out for on DVD. Ben Affleck, for years treated as the less serious one in the writing partnership with Matt Damon, has emerged as a leading man of authority and believability, as well as a director of considerable talent. Argo, his terrific account of the rescue of hostages during the 1979 siege of the American Embassy in Iran, has some great naturalistic ensemble playing—the type that makes you forget that these people are indulging in make-believe. And Skyfall, the new 007 (for those living in caves) also has its moments—the first time I can recall performances in a Bond film lingering longer in the mind than ejector seats and exploding pens.
There are some exceptional young British actors around. Ben Whishaw and Tom Hiddleston were both compelling in the BBC’s Shakespeare season last summer, and Damian Lewis’s Old Etonian roots came as a
surprise to American audiences of the political thriller Homeland, so convincing is he as the US marine turned possible terrorist. And in HBO’s meticulous, five-hour remake of the Joan Crawford classic Mildred Pierce, Kate Winslet, who I don’t think I have seen give a poor performance, proved once again why she will undoubtedly be Dame Kate within a decade or two.
These then are a few of the stand-outs. But the truth is, it is now very rare to come across an actively bad performance. Perhaps we are living in a golden age of screen acting. Like the camera work displayed by even the most ordinary of B-movies, the general standard in acting seems to have risen. Visual sophistication has come about largely by technical innovation and a generation literate in the ins and outs of movie-making. Something similar may have happened in acting. Or—and this is not to take away from those I’ve mentioned who have scaled the heights this past year—could it be that on one level acting is just, well, easier than once it was? We are all of us so immersed in an entertainment culture, so familiar with film and television and their various decades-old conventions, that most of us could probably summon up an adequate
