5 must-see Tilda Swinton performances

Whether you’re the casual movie-goer thrilled by the evil White Witch of the Chronicles of Narnia, a pop culture geek having a visceral reaction to The Ancient One in Dr Strange or Gabriel in Constantine, or even a highbrow film enthusiast appreciating the nuances in Valerie Thomas in Adaptation or Social Services in Moonrise Kingdom, one thing is for sure: Tilda Swinton (née Catherine Mathilda Swinton) knows how to deliver a performance so compelling and ethereal. So varied is her portfolio, so wide her range, you won’t find two lists ranking her performances with the exact same movies named. While the jury is out on which of her stellar roles deserves the definitive title of “best”, while we wait for her to grace us with her stellar presence at the Dhaka Lit Fest next month, here’s a look at five not-to-be-missed performances by the talented Tilda Swinton.

Young Adam

A relatively minor, and yet significant role as the homely wife of a barge owner who strikes up a fleeting but passionate affair with a young employee, Swinton brings such an intensity to this role that you want to look away but can’t take your eyes off her. Even in the filth and squalour of her settings, in the grubbiest clothes (more frequently out of them, as it transpires), her unique features grimed up to emphasise her lover’s total lack of regard for age, or attractiveness, let alone social mores, she remains luminous. A truly striking performance.

Julia

With a titian hair colour and a slash of red lipstick, Swinton transforms in to the quintessential hot mess in her role as the titular Julia, in this Eric Zonka film about the promiscuous alcoholic who decides to ransom a child for money. Equal parts darkly funny, tough-as-nails but also vulnerable and unsure, and cockily dishonest, Julia is a character that’s hard to love, but by the end, it’s impossible to hate her, and oh how Ms Swinton delivers!

I Am Love

Turning up the glam factor for this one, Swinton plays a Russian woman unhappily married into an impossibly wealthy Italian, where she never manages to quite fit in, even after raising her children and running the household for decades. She starts an  affair with a much younger man, a working man, a cook who happens to be her son’s friend, and this naturally sends ripples through the family. Not only does Swinton display linguistic dexterity as she switches from Russian to fluent Russian-accented Italian, she plays Emma Recchi with a subtlety that transcends words. A richly human film.

We need to talk about Kevin

A film that sadly continues to remain relevant as the gun law debates continue in the wake of another mass shooting earlier this year, We need to talk about Kevin, based on the book by Lionel Shriver (another personality to look forward to at the DLF), views the tragedy from the point of view of the mother of a mass murderer. Swinton is absolutely heart-breaking as a once-carefee woman whose uneasy relationship with her psychotic son begins at his birth, culminating in a horrific act that lands him behind bars, leaving her without a family, at the mercy of the families of the boy’s victims, who blame her for raising a terrorist. Swinton channels the exhaustion, the frustration and the grief so poignantly, you’ll be reaching for the tissues long before the credits roll.

Michael Clayton

Tilda Swinton defies convention, and nowhere is that more evident than her performance in Michael Clayton. It was for this film that she won her Oscar, where she plays an evil-to-the-bone chief legal officer for a big corporation. It is impossible to describe in words the notes that Swinton hits in this subtle performance, going from nervous wreck to Machiavellian monster. A superb, multilayered performance which exposes our own mixed feelings about corporate America.