“It’s just fucking great”: the 2010 movie Amanda Seyfried called “flawless”
Amanda Seyfried tends to be pigeon-holed as a comedy star, given that she had her breakout roles in Mean Girls, Jennifer’s Body, and Mamma Mia!, but she has also quietly become one of the most ambitious and willfully experimental actors of her generation.
In the last few years, she’s almost exclusively taken on projects from acclaimed creatives that present a high amount of difficulty, something that seemingly began in 2018, when she took on the complex role of a grieving widow in First Reformed, the spiritual drama that earned Paul Schrader his very first Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’.
Although she followed this up with an amazing performance on Hulu’s The Dropout, in which she completely transformed for the role of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Seyfried delivered what may have been her best performance ever last year with The Testament of Ann Lee.
Mona Fastvold’s avant-garde musical could have easily been a total mess, but Seyfried found something sincere and even beautiful within the story of a woman who took it upon herself to start a new movement of religious purity. While it is a film that will certainly be remembered as a masterpiece in years to come, the actor has also been keen to seek out parts that benefit her career; The Housemaid was one of the biggest hits of last year, and she acted circles around her co-stars in Paul Feig’s dark comedy.
Given that she has worked in multiple levels of the industry, Seyfried is worth listening to whenever she speaks out about a film that she admires. While there’s no expecting what type of films Seyfried watches in her free time, it was still somewhat surprising to hear her full-throated endorsement of Animal Kingdom, a 2010 Australian crime drama directed by David Michod, which she called a “flawless movie”.
“Even just the way they start out the film with the kid sitting there for, like, two minutes, a minute and a half, next to his dead mother, it’s really profound,” she said, “A look into, you know, another place that I’m just not aware of, and I have no familiarity with. It’s just fucking great.”
Animal Kingdom was a brutal thriller that explored the complications of being involved with a family of career criminals, and served as a spotlight for many Australian actors who had started to gain more notoriety outside of their home country. While Guy Pearce had already broken through to Western audiences with his work in Memento and LA Confidential, this film offered him one of the most fleshed-out and interesting roles of his career, which is also known for breaking out Ben Mendelsohn, who would become a significant character actor in the next decade.
Seyfried has made it no secret that she advocates for better roles for women, and Animal Kingdom features one of the most terrifying and surprising female villain roles in recent memory from Jackie Weaver, who earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actress’.
Weaver had been respected for years, but like Seyfried, she was able to give a fearless, transformative performance that proved that she would sign up for any project that would be able to offer her the opportunity to show her range.
