What could be more fun than Meryl Streep playing a villain? Meryl Streep playing a villain twice if rumors of The Devil Wears Prada sequel are to be believed. The original film followed Anne Hathaway's character Andy as a lowly assistant to Streep's Miranda Priestly at Runway magazine - a publication that was a thinly veiled clone of real world Vogue magazine. Emily Blunt played a fellow assistant also named Emily jockeying for power and approval.
Female villains like Miranda Priestly, Rosamund Pike (Amy) in Gone Girl and Michelle Pfeiffer (Catwoman) in Batman Returns turn genre tropes and conventions on their head. It is commonly accepted that women in general and female protagonists in particular are expected to be "nice". What that means in practice is that we have very rarely seen the grand dame of American acting - Meryl Streep - play a baddy. And we rarely see our foremost leading ladies as villains. So how is it done...this business of writing the female antihero? Let's take a closer look at these three films to see.
The Devil Wears Prada centers around an Anna Wintour-like figure who is captivating in her style of dress and her manner of speaking. She has an aura for all intents and purposes of superiority. Andy's character falls all over herself to measure up and please, but never quite gets there even after Stanley Tucci's character Nigel helps her select stylish clothes for work in place of the garish garments she initially wears.
An interesting aspect of Miranda's character is that she never changes or evolves into being "nice". She remains steely and difficult to please and doesn't apologize for it. Of course, in contrast to Amy in Gone Girl, she is never truly evil, just demanding. Streep commented that she did not base her character on Wintour but instead on men she had known as there were not enough women in positions of power to copy. It is telling that Streep received her 14th Oscar nomination for the role, indicating that Hollywood was more than ready to accept her playing a villain even if it was a comedic turn.
Gone Girl is another matter entirely. Amazing Amy is undoubtedly evil. Rosamund Pike also received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a woman who fakes her own disappearance and plans to commit suicide and frame her husband Nick, played by Ben Affleck, for her "murder". Amy does in fact play "nice" her whole life as the inspiration for her parents' Amazing Amy children's books. It isn't until half way through the film that we discover that Nick is not the bad guy in this picture. He is actually a victim of Amy's.
Amy senses all is not well in their marriage and learns of Nick's affair with one of his students. She fakes her own disappearance on their fifth wedding anniversary. Because we do not know that Amy has drawn her own blood, thrown it on the kitchen floor and then haphazardly cleaned it up, we think Nick is guilty as sin... especially in light of his affair with a much younger woman.
As the plot thickens and unravels, Amy finds an old friend, Desi - played by Neil Patrick Harris, frames him for rape and then kills him. Eventually she admits this to Nick and we as the audience are in shock at the level of depravity this woman is capable of. I read the original book by the brilliant Gillian Flynn, and even after seeing the movie first, I was still in a state of stupor at Amazing Amy's perverse sense of the world and her place in it.
Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, sets us up to sympathize heavily with poor, cheated upon Amy. In the immortal words of every district attorney ever...it's always the husband. I have read all three of Flynn's novels (and am eagerly awaiting the fourth). These novels include Gone Girl, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. Her writing is a master class in upending stereotypes and expectations of female protagonists who definitely tend towards the evil side of things in her prose.
The film is directed by David Fincher - himself a lover of the twist ending as seen in Se7en, Fight Club and the chronically underrated - The Game. It is refreshing to see a female character so fully formed in her shamelessness though we feel for Nick when he has to end up with her. That may just be the price of having had the affair. Karma may in fact be a loveless marriage with a murderess psychopath.
Michelle Pfeiffer's turn as Catwoman in Batman Returns is the most raw, heartfelt performance ever committed to film for a superhero movie with the possible exception of Heath Ledger's Joker for which he deservedly received a posthumous Academy Award. It is my contention that if Batman Returns came out today, Pfeiffer would also be nominated at the very least. Selina Kyle starts as a mild mannered secretary who is a threat to noone and becomes Catwoman who is trouble with a capital T. Batman, played admirably by Michal Keaton, fights Max Shreck, Selina's former boss and The Penguin (Danny Devito) for power and control in Gotham City.
The Catwoman origin story starts with Selina Kyle's boss Max Shreck throwing her out of a window. Cats surround her as she lays on the ground, and one even tries to eat her finger. When she gets home, she sews a Catwoman costume and starts asserting herself like the superheroine she was born to be. That includes plotting to kill her boss and dating the dashing Bruce Wayne - Batman's alter ego.
Catwoman is a fun villain in a way that Miranda Priestly and Amazing Amy are not. We delight in her machinations and tics and root for her even though she is not exactly morally high-minded like Batman. When the big reveal happens - that is to say when Selina and Bruce realize that they are Catwoman and Batman respectively - these classic lines are uttered: "You know mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it. But a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it." We are happy for them and root for them to be together even though we know Selina is packing heat in the hopes of killing her former boss.
When well-written and brilliantly acted as in the above examples, the female villain really subverts presumptions and existing beliefs. Films with female villains give the actresses more to play with than cookie cutter romantic comedy leads. There's nothing wrong with a good rom-com, don't get me wrong. In the spirit of this post, check out The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, where Bullock plays a mean girl heroine in contrast to her usual girl-next-door-nice-girl image.
Here's hoping that the powers that be in Hollywood see fit to grace us with more multifaceted performances for women - villainous or not.