This Weekend’s Film Festival Celebrates Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet is among the upper echelon of living actors. Looking at her resume, she has given one stellar performance after another in some of the best and most successful films of the past decade and a half. Upon the home entertainment release of her Oscar-winning performance in THE READER, This Weekend's Film Festival celebrates this new legendary performer. The lineup not only captures some of her best work, but also the wide range and undeniable passion she brings to each role. Whether playing a fantasy drunk teen or an impulsive outsider or a disgruntled wife or a provocative writer or a secretive reader, she proves time and time again why Kate is great.

Kate Winslet made her striking feature film debut in Peter Jackson's HEAVENLY CREATURES. She plays Juliet, a rich girl whose parents are about to divorce who hides in a fantasy world to shield herself from reality. She is the spark that brings protagonist Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) out of her shell. However, the girl's close relationship begins to worry their parents, and when they are torn apart, the darker their fantasy world becomes. As I said in my original review, "[Winslet] never overplays Juliet. We believe that she is drunk on life and fantasy. The honesty of the performance makes her actions all the more disturbing, because she's a real person losing her way instead of some caricatured 'crazy person.'" Based on a true story, the impending dread that builds toward the tragic ending is strongly created by the believability of the leads. Winslet and Lynskey's characters are smart, inventive girls whose emotions swing wildly. While their highs are giddy and their lows are morose, Winslet especially captures the excessive passion of youth. But there is a point when that passion slips into a dark place and because we have come to care for these characters, we wish for them to turn away from where they are headed.

Kate Winslet was Oscar nominated for her work in Michel Gondry's ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Based on a screenplay by the inventive Charlie Kaufman, the film stars Winslet as Clementine Kruczynski, the impetuous girlfriend of shy Joel Barish, played by Jim Carrey. In this sci-fi comedy, Clementine has her memories of Joel erased after a huge fight. In response, Joel goes to the same people to have his memories of her washed from his mind. In the process, we get glimpses into their relationship, both the good and the bad. Up to this point in her career, Winslet hadn't play many contemporary characters, but proved that she wasn't just suited for period pieces or on-the-edge characters in exotic locations. She brings a blunt honesty and impulsive passion to Clementine that makes her complex. It becomes clear why Joel has fallen for her and why he is infuriated by her at the same time. Winslet and Carrey make for an odd couple that seems perfect for each other and completely wrong for each other at the same time. Looking past the sci-fi hook, ETERNAL SUNSHINE honestly looks at this relationship and ponders the power that memory has over us and how accurate those memories are. To quote my original review, "This is a great romance that understands why people come together and why they work and don’t work. It honestly understands how relationships tend to play out – they start out nice, but if they end they end with exaggerated spite."

LITTLE CHILDREN was overlooked in the big category at the Oscars, but Winslet was not. As I said in my original review, "Winslet proves once again that she is one of the best of her generation and is fearless to take on challenging material." She plays Sarah Pierce who finds herself in a loveless marriage trapped in a housewife role that isn't fulfilling. She falls into an affair with stay-at-home dad Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson). Their relationship brings youthful passion back into their lives, but they fall into selfishness. In an Oscar-nominated supporting role, Jackie Earle Haley plays Ronald McGorvey, a 40-something pedophile, who becomes the boogey man of the neighborhood. His story and that of Sarah's come colliding into each other at the end in a poignant comment on the impact and importance parents have on the lives of their children. Winslet opens herself up to not only bear her body, but also her soul. Like in 2009's REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, her character touches on dark places of human nature and the difficulties of growing older. Todd Field's absorbing drama not only showcases the talents of its Oscar nominees Winslet and Hayley, but its entire cast, which includes Wilson, Phyllis Somerville as Ronald's protective mother, Jennifer Connelly as Brad's successful wife, and Noah Emmerich as an ex-cop who makes it his mission to harass Ronald. It has become one of the signatures of Winslet's career that she worked with talented performers who only make her better.

IRIS tells the story of writer Iris Murdoch. Winslet plays the progressive thinker and author as a young woman when she is coming into her intellectual prowess and begins a lifelong love affair with John Bayley. As I said in my original review, "Winslet is electric as the young vibrant writer and forward thinker. Her bold passion makes her irresistible to [Hugh] Bonneville’s John, while causing him great trepidation as well. It’s hard to be in love with a free spirit sometimes." Winslet's performance is crucial to the larger picture that director Richard Eyre is trying to paint. He uses Winslet's Iris to be a bold contract to the older Alzheimer's suffering Iris, played in an Oscar-nominated performance by Judi Dench. In captivating the viewer with the intellectual sparring of the younger Iris and John, the heart wrenching drama powerfully portrays the tragedy of Alzheimer's as Dench's Iris forgets who she was and Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent's John is left behind to witness what she has lost. Once again, Winslet works with a top-notched cast in a drama with intelligence and poignancy. Like Clementine, Winslet's Iris is both charming and infuriating, while being 100% fascinating.

THE READER won Winslet her first Academy Award. With challenging roles in this film and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, 2009 was the year for Winslet. In THE READER, she plays Hanna, a trolley worker who strikes up an affair with a teen named Michael, played by David Kross as a young man and Ralph Fiennes older. Secrets abound and years after the affair abruptly ends, Michael discovers one of Hanna's dark secrets — she was a guard for the Nazis. As I said in my original review, "Winslet shines as a fiercely proud woman, who is cold and frank. Hanna made moral bargains with herself to lessen her guilt, but it was only a temporary fix." Stephen Daldry's thought-provoking drama deals with our motivations for keeping secrets and how those secrets affect the world. Winslet's track record of playing fascinating and complex characters is a testament to her talent and ability to pull off the most challenging roles. Some critics complained that THE READER is trying to apologize for Hanna's actions as a Nazi, but that is not what the film intends on doing. Hanna's actions and justifications are inexcusable, but the story has the bravery to allow even someone who has committed evil to try to make amends. To simply demonize everyone who aided the Nazis undermines the fact that human beings committed the atrocity. The final scene between Fiennes' Michael and Lena Olin's Holocaust survivor is crucial to the complex ideas the film addresses. Can we forgive those that murdered our loved ones? What is our loyalty to those we loved that commit murder? Winslet never tries to make us forgive Hanna. Hanna is who she is and she has to live with that. But how can Michael live with that?

To witness Kate Winslet amazing work simply head to videostore, update the Netflix queue, visit Zap2It.com for TV listings or help support the site by buying the films on DVD at the links below.