It’s not usually my thing to write about the appearances of
actors or actresses, especially in the age of #MeToo. I’m probably
more likely to write about the appearance of an actor, since it’s a lot less
skeevy to talk about the looks of men than the looks of women when you’re a
heterosexual male.
But as I was watching Claire Denis’ High Life last night, I couldn’t help but notice that Juliette
Binoche is a more beautiful woman now than she was 30 years ago.
And I’m mentioning it because that is not part of the conventional wisdom when
considering actresses, or women in general, sad to say.
I first became acquainted with Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which
was made in 1998 but which I saw in 1992. This was before I recorded the dates
of my viewings, but I remember watching it in college as part of the class
where we also read the novel. It’s cliché to say it but this is one of those
instances where the novel is so much better than the movie. But one of the
reasons the movie disappointed me was Binoche.
I’m sure her acting wasn’t bad, because she has impeccable
instincts, although 30+ years of practice since then has undoubtedly made her
better. No, it was something about her appearance. She was too pale, and her
face seemed slack and featureless. Almost like her features were blown out in
an overexposed photograph. This is the best I can describe an indescribable
impression I had 27 years ago.
How somebody looks should not, ideally, affect your impression of them. In reality, it does, especially when you are a not-yet-fully-enlightened
18-year-old.
I remember still not really liking her a few years later in The English Patient, and here she was
suffering in contrast to Kristin Scott Thomas. Interestingly, Thomas was also
someone whose appeal was not yet clear to me when I first saw her two years
earlier in my beloved Four Weddings and a
Funeral. Something about her features had sharpened by Patient, and her glamor increased tenfold. Binoche came off worse
by comparison.
I’d guess I was coming around on Binoche by what seems to be
my third time seeing her in Chocolat
in 2000. That’s not a great movie, of course; it’s one of the shining examples of
the safe kind of movie that gets Oscar nominations because of a nice production
designed and being inoffensive. But I remember thinking Binoche was now someone
I liked. I’ve basically liked her ever since, which does not mean I’ve liked
every movie she’s appeared in (hello, Clouds
of Sils Maria). But Binoche is definitely a plus rather than a minus, and
it’s not even close. In fact I’ve pretty much come to think of her as a treasure,
the way others do.
Juliette Binoche was 24 when she made The Unbearable Lightness of Being. She was 54 when she made High Life. Yet the 54-year-old version
of her puts the 24-year-old version to shame.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison so you can see if you agree
or not:
I’m not 100% sure why, but I will try to describe some more
indescribables. I said before that her face felt featureless and slack. Now it’s
got some angles, which accentuate the bedrock beauty that she needed to have to
get recognized in the first place. She may have had facelifts and the like, and
if so that’s not really how I hoped to be reaching this conclusion (but kudos
to her surgeon). But since the improvement started in her early 30s I suspect
that’s not the only or the defining difference.
It’s not that it’s impossible for a woman to “grow into her
looks,” it’s just that that’s an unusual thing to be expecting for actresses or other famous women in
particular. In the most extreme version of the truth, Hollywood only values
certain women while they are still in their 20s. Hit 30 and you have to be a
star or a true thespian to keep getting work. Binoche may be both on some
level, but ironically she also started getting better looking after 30.
Or it could just be that beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, and the older and more sophisticated version of Binoche speaks to me
personally the way the younger version did not.
Either way, damn, she’s a 54-year-old hottie. Fifty-five now,
but 54 when High Life was shot.
And I’m not even saying that because she has graphic sex
with a machine in the movie.
Though it doesn’t hurt.
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