Number 20: Rachel Weisz as Tessa Quayle in "The Constant Gardener" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Rachel Weisz keeps crawling up like nobody else in my ranking – commencing in the Bottom 5 she jumped up into the 40s and now entered my Leading 20 for her efficiency as Tessa, a political activist who is killed in Africa following her investigations of pharmaceutical businesses.

Tessa is a kind of ambiguous character for me – on the 1 hand it’s simple to admire her work and her determination to assist inadequate individuals but on the other hand she is also extremely...silly when it arrives to her perform. An smart woman like her need to be a small a lot more ‘realistic’ when it will come to battling in Africa – does she actually think that operating all around and insulting effective folks proper and still left will aid her in any way? Her desire for the live of a young lady in a medical center is admirable but does she even believe about her very own, dead youngster for a single 2nd? So it is really effortless to adore Tessa for what she wants to do but also easy to criticise her for how she does it.

But what does all this mean for Rachel Weisz? Nicely, she is by some means able to ‘sell’ this character – the finds the excellent balance between perseverance and hesitation, she is effective with no getting annoying, charming without being sweet. It is a sturdy and memorable characterization that assists to flip Tessa into a plausible, multidimensional character whose wrestle and fights turn into much much more charming than the screenplay could achieve.

 Correct from her 1st times on-display, Rachel Weisz is properly in a position to blend her British appeal with a much more cosmopolite frame of mind.  From her first assembly with Justin (do not you just adore the way she says ‘So do labradors’?) to her plea to get her to Africa she builds the foundation of the story that follows and results in a beautiful and practical chemistry with Ralph Fiennes. She’s in a position to generate a character that is not only realistic but one that really captivates the viewer, a character you want to know far more about and invest much more time with and even although her awful destiny is very clear right from the beginning, it nonetheless an amazingly loss and shock when it really does come about.

In the medical center the intentions of her character may possibly not be genuinely distinct but Rachel Weisz is nonetheless heartbreaking and effective when she pleads to Sandy to assist her. And later on, she communicates so a lot spoken, unspoken and concealed words when she tries to influence Sandy to give her an essential letter.  

In some methods, Tessa may possibly only be the set-up for the rest of the tale but Rachel Weisz results in Tessa as a domineering existence – when she appears once again at the stop of the movie, it turns into very clear how powerful her affect and her presence actually are.  

It’s a performance that grew on me and that may possibly proceed to grow on me in the potential – a powerful and dedicated functionality that developed one of the most interesting figures in this classification.