Or, Battle of the Biddies

It’s a virtual certainty that Helen Mirren will win Best Actress at the Oscars this year for her performance in The Queen. The Academy’s weakness for historical pomp (as well as high-class celebrity gossip) gives her a definite edge over the nearest competition, Judi Dench. Both are A-grade examples of the English acting style—technically brilliant, scrupulously detailed, emotionally engaging. Mirren—her hair pulled back into a powdery bouffant, her face partially obscured by a sensible pair of spectacles—is convincing even if you’ve never seen the real Queen Elizabeth II. Her voice rarely registers above a stage whisper, but her face is a map of emotion. Watch carefully in the scene where she visits Diana’s memorial. Her subtle progression of facial expressions as a little girl hands her a bunch of flowers is truly touching.

Dench’s sensational performance as the cruelly manipulative history teacher in Notes on a Scandal is far more heated than Mirren’s but no less controlled. She reveals so many layers to her prickly character that you sympathize with her despite screenwriter Patrick Marber’s attempts to turn her into the villain of the piece. It’s a shock to see such a mature, beautiful lady partake of the nasty mind games played out in Richard Eyre’s film, but great actors have a habit of shattering audience complacency. Watching Dench disappear, chameleon-like, into one of the loneliest, most desperate movie characters of recent years is a singular privilege.

I mention these two performances in tandem because they represent the full range of a particular style of acting I greatly admire—the kind of openly theatrical versatility that seems specially made to provoke self-reflection in the viewer. In fact, if I were asked to name the greatest performance I’ve ever seen by an actress in a film, I’d probably choose another grand matron of the English stage, Dame Edith Evans in The Whisperers. Mirren and Dench come from this proud tradition of playacting, and it’s easy to see why the Academy is so taken with them. Taking nothing away from Meryl Streep (deliciously sardonic in The Devil Wears Prada), Kate Winslet (moving as the adulterous wife in Little Children) or Penelope Cruz (never more radiant than in Volver), this year belongs to those two models of Anglo-Saxon excellence, Dame Helen and Dame Judi.