Beautiful Girls (1996)

Drama directed by Ted Demme and written by Scott Rosenberg. 

It’s a sort of grown-up “Brat Pack” drama following a group of friends based in Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts, who come back together for a school reunion. There’s an intelligence lurking in the script but it’s also slightly muddled. Some of the performances are strong, but sometimes it’s unclear what point the film is trying to make. For example, Uma Thurman’s character – a random cousin called Andera – floats in and out of the story without much logic. And the thread about Willie (Timothy Hutton) developing an odd connection with 13-year-old Marty (Natalie Portman) raises some quite awkward questions that the film doesn’t really address. 

The ensemble cast also includes Matt Dillon, Noah Emmerich, Lauren Holly, Rosie O’Donnell, Martha Plimpton, Michael Rapaport and Mira Sorvino.

It’s nearly there, but only nearly.

Closer (2004)

Drama directed and produced by Mike Nichols, based on a 1997 stage play by Patrick Marber. 

The story deals with the intersecting relationships of two men and two women. Clive Owen and Natalie Portman are both excellent at presenting complex, rounded characters. Jude Law just does his usual Jude Law thing. And Julia Roberts is oddly drippy and underwhelming with a character that’s barely there – to the extent that you have no idea why two men would be obsessed with her. 

It ends up a little overwrought, with lots of rather pompous statements about truth and honesty uttered by characters who are all over the place. You feel the writing tries too hard to be shocking and morally confrontational. As an account of intense human emotions it’s compelling but difficult to like.

Black Swan (2010)

Brilliant, engaging drama about a young ballet dancer (Natalie Portman), who gets the lead role in a new production of Swan Lake. Her manipulative and abusive teacher drives her to increasingly extreme actions in the name of training her for the role. She also has a controlling mother to contend with.

Portman is excellent as the ambitious but conflicted dancer who undergoes a remarkable transformation into the swan in the interests of achieving technical perfection. 

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, it’s filmed in a striking way, with tropes from horror films cleverly deployed to add suspense and scary drama.

Jackie (2016)

Directed by Pablo Larraín, this is a sort of biopic about the wife of John F. Kennedy in the days before and after his assassination. 

Like all the best biopics, it doesn’t attempt to cram a complete life story into two hours. Instead, it zooms in on one moment in that life and uses it to explore the character in depth. 

It’s impressionistic, without losing sight of dialogue and storytelling. Natalie Portman gives the performance of a lifetime as Jacqueline Kennedy. 

It’s sad and disturbing, perfectly capturing her mixture of shock, anger and loss.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Trashy historical drama. 

Scarlett Johansson plays Mary Boleyn. Natalie Portman is her more famous sister Anne, the second wife of Henry VIII. The story details the two sisters and their ill-fated relationships with the king, who desperately craves a male heir. 

It’s a work of fiction, adapted from a novel by Philippa Gregory, rather than a slice of history. This allows it to explore what might have happened rather than what probably happened.

There are some entertaining moments. Portman is unusually strong in her role, while Johansson is typically weak. There are also solid performances by Kristin Scott Thomas and Eddie Redmayne. What lets it down is Eric Bana as Henry VIII. For the plot to work, he needs to be charismatic and magnetic. Bana is none of these things. You cannot believe that this rather weedy figure has so much influence because he completely lacks gravitas.

Cold Mountain (2003)

Truly excellent drama set during the US civil war. It’s a war film, a love story and a historical epic. 

When the war breaks out, the quiet, inarticulate Inman (Jude Law) is one of the young men from North Carolina who has to fight with the Confederate army. But he has just fallen for Ada (Nicole Kidman), the daughter of the preacher (Donald Sutherland), and has to leave her – just as their relationship is beginning. Injured in battle, he attempts to make his way back home to Ada while being hunted for deserting. 

All of the leads are on excellent form. Renée Zellweger plays Ruby, a plucky free spirit who helps Ada salvage her farm and her self-respect. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a crooked preacher. Natalie Portman is a widowed mother. There are also parts for Jack White, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson and Cillian Murphy. 

It’s an emotional and affecting work that avoids cliché, especially since the romance is unconventional to begin with. The couple barely know each other, but their connection is overwhelmingly powerful. As a result, the film is too.

Anywhere but Here (1999)

Impulsive, restless Adele August (Susan Sarandon) drags her teenage daughter Ann (Natalie Portman) from Bay City, Wisconsin, to Beverly Hills, California, to begin a new life. It soon becomes clear that Ann is the more sensible of the pair, and her resentment builds as she considers the friends and family she’s been forced to leave behind. 

The film begins with a road trip and I would have liked more of that, but ultimately it’s not about their travels. The focus is primarily on the mother-daughter relationship and how that develops under increasingly strained circumstances. There are a few laughs, too, which emerge from a strong, character-driven script. 

Sarandon sparkles as the maddening but hugely appealing Adele. Portman gives a performance that unlike other films (Star Wars prequels, Garden State), suggests she’s a pretty solid actor who hasn’t always chosen the right roles. 

The conclusion is satisfying and emotional without being mawkish.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Episode II is even more awful than you remembered. There is so much wrong with it... Some of the worst “acting” you will ever see. Flat dialogue. “Jokes” that simply are not funny. Brightly lit green-screen sets that never seem real. Ponderous, almost faux-Shakespearean exchanges that hint at a weighty “significance” that never arrives. When Anakin tries to do “romance” – declaring his love for Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) – or indeed any kind of acting, it is excruciating. Hayden Christensen is way out of his depth and grotesquely miscast in the role of the troubled child about to become the evil dictator Darth Vader. Never once can you believe in him.

As with Episode I (1999), the weakest in the series, there’s something fundamentally “not quite right” about the whole film. There’s way too much of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) just...wandering around. And, but for a few action scenes, it’s incredibly s-l-o-w. Hard to believe this was designed to appeal to kids. Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine is the one redeeming feature.