There are some actresses that bring a certain sort of radiance and happiness to my days whenever I see them in movies. One, of course, is the lovely Jessica Chastain. The other is unsurprisingly another red-head, and also the woman who I deem to be my favourite actress: Amy Adams. I have been in love with Amy since I saw her in Enchanted over four years back, and have been watching her in anything I possibly could ever since. Through that I’ve seen a few misfires (Leap Year and Moonlight Serenade stick out in that department), a few little gems (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Junebug), but of course, I’ve seen Amy’s immense talent shining through in every single one of them. So I thought, since it is her birthday and all, I may as well appreciate that talent by listing the five performances that make her my favourite actress. And you must know that it was quite hard to whittle the list down to just five.
5. Rose in Sunshine Cleaning
Sunshine Cleaning is quite an underrated little gem, boasting two fine performances by both Emily Blunt and Amy. The pair starts up a business cleaning up crime scenes, with Emily playing the unreliable sister, and Amy playing the brains behind it all. What I loved about Amy’s character was the fact that back in the day, she was the most popular girl in high school, and everyone expected so much from her. However, now, she’s in adult world, she finds herself struggling, even saying that she’s a real estate agent to a former class mate to make herself seem like she’s still on top. Unfortunately, Rose is still stuck in that high school ideal where you have to appear as if you’re doing well, as opposed to actually doing well. Amy hits the right notes with that, instead of turning her character into a whiny, “oh my life sucks” kind of person. Which, in an independent feature such as this, is quite a rare thing.
