Carey Mulligan: Five Films for Newcomers
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Today is Carey Mulligan’s birthday, and it’s crazy to think that she has been giving us incredible performances for over ten years already; it felt just like yesterday when she was experiencing her breakthrough in her early ‘20s (when she was the youngest nominee for Best Actress in 2010). Now, we’ve seen her in every kind of film, pulling off a myriad of different kinds of performances. So, let us analyze five of those today. Like we always do when it’s someone’s birthday, we’re going to reduce an entire filmography into only a couple of selections (if possible). Here are five films for newcomers to the works of Carey Mulligan.
5. Drive
Drive is a very passive film when it comes to its performances, but that still takes a lot of talent. Mulligan plays the mysterious onlooker role effectively, especially since much of what she conveys isn’t explicitly said. You still understand how she is coping in her tough position without her ranting or complaining. In fact, she almost feels like a tabula rasa, and that you could plant yourself in her position and sympathize with her entirely.
4. Inside Llewyn Davis
I feel like knocking a Coen brothers role out of the park is any rite of passage for American thespians, so you can imagine the rare moment when an actress across the pond does just that and occasionally steals the show. That’s Mulligan in a nutshell during Inside Llewyn Davis, who embodies the filmmaking siblings’ unique sense of humour, drama, and all things in between.
3. An Education
Mulligan’s career took off at full speed after her performance as the bright-yet-naive student Jenny in An Education stopped presses and froze the industry. She is so classically charming and magnetic, and yet her guilts hit you just as hard. Mulligan was touted as the possible front runner for the Academy Award that year until Sandra Bullock reached the finish line for The Blindside, but Mulligan would only be getting started.
2. Shame
As great as Steve McQueen’s Shame is, I do love how Mulligan’s incredibly complex character is able to overtake entire moments. McQueen embraces this, too, especially in the breathtaking “New York, New York” number that she delivers mostly in one take. You’re not quite sure what to make of her character, but you know there is somebody with a genuine heart underneath the many fronts she puts up (and besides any mistakes she makes). You grow to love her, and her wellbeing becomes a terrifying element of the narrative.
1. Promising Young Woman
So this is Carey Mulligan’s most recent role, but I also think it is her best role. She does so much emotional and psychological juggling in Promising Young Woman, that I find it hard not to crown this her ultimate acting achievement. She makes Cassie one of 2020’s most fascinating characters, because of how multifaceted she is (as well as how much she defines each facet furthermore). This is one of those roles that you can only define as singular, and it would probably be the best place to start in her filmography.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.