Opening Night

gena rowlands inhabits every role she plays, making them live and breathe in ways which feel devastatingly hers.  distance between actor and character do not exist as she dissolves into them so completely that the facade of film entirely fades leaving just the raw pulse of life unfolding. the characters she plays don’t seem to be archetypes or ideas, they are feverishly specific, brittle in one moment and unbreakable in the next, all so recognisably human as if rowlands has poured her own condition into them allowing every fracture of vitality to flare on screen.