I am appalled that it’s taken us this long to feature the incredible Melanie Lynskey on Woman Crush Wednesday! Let’s take a look at her repertoire of historical film and television roles!
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Ever After (1998)
Detroit Rock City (1999)
The Cherry Orchard (1999)
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Comanche Moon (2008)
Mrs. America (2020)
Candy (2022)
Do you have a favorite film or TV role featuring Melanie Lynskey? Share it with us in the comments!
I didn’t see Candy, but there’s another TV movie based off this story. It’s called A Killing in a Small Town, and it stars Barbara Hershey and Brian Dennehy. I thought it was really well done. :)
I did see that when I was skimming the wiki page on “Candy”! There was also another series that came out a year later on HBO that was also about Betty Gore’s murder, called “Love & Death”, starring Elizabeth Olsen.
I missed that one! :)
Ever After was my introduction to Melanie Lynskey (alongside Sweet Home Alabama, and the infinitely quotable “You have a baby… in a bar!”) but I never really thought the film was saying her character was ‘ugly’ – just that she wasn’t as classically/conventionally pretty as her sister (and certainly much less of a social climber) so their mother wrote her off as a lost cause early on.
They fat shamed her character relentlessly in Ever After, but of course that was mainly Rodmilla being demonstratively shitty because she was the wicked stepmother. That said, I still think it was part of the larger discourse on the way toxic turn-of-the-millennium attitudes towards thinness was so pervasive at that point that the fact that a character who was objectively a healthy weight and size was considered “fat” compared to her conventionally attractive (blonde/thin) sister.
That and I always interpreted the ugly for the stepsisters to refer to their foul character (shallow, mean and plotting) contrasting Cinderella’s character as sweet, kind, and lovely to be around.
It might actually be perfectly in keeping with at least one very old version of the tale to depict the Ugly Stepsisters being quite terrifying to look at because they’re obsessed with cosmetics to the point if outright ‘body modification’ (If memory serves, the Brothers Grimm depicted those Stepsisters CUTTING UP THEIR OWN FEET in a failed bid to fit the Glass Slipper).
My own personal notion would be to lean into the notion of their being just FEROCIOUSLY inbred – if they and their mother are from the old nobility whilst Cinderella herself is of sufficiently modest origins for there to be a serious risk of her being permanently dismissed to the peasant class, her achievement in the ultimate social coup (Marrying THE Prince) becomes all the more remarkable a triumph.
Also, we get to spite the sort of idiot toffs who assume that children only need four great-grandparents.
I saw it for the first time when I was maybe 6 or 7 so I think I chalked it up to your first point – that the comments about her eating too much were just Rodmilla being a horrible person to everyone except the one daughter who could help advance her social standing.
But you’re right, she probably was considered the ‘fat’ sister next to Megan Dodds (it blew my mind learning in my late teens that people considered Kate Winslet, who is stunning, ‘fat’ in Titanic.)
For me, Melanie is a delightful actress that will always find more interesting roles because she doesn’t necessarily fit the roll of the ingenue. She is attractive in an away that allows her to inhabit a much broader number of rolls. I also love that she is a so called ‘regular”, normal woman. Our society continues to engage in fat shaming that is so unrealistic, the tendency is to look at healthy women and judge them as “overweight” when that is so incredibly untrue. She also hasn’t Botoxed her face into the frozen visage that so many actors present today. Love her.
Aah, Melanie Lynskey: another actress who, like her sometime costar Ms Drew Barrymore, has the sort of face that makes me suspect she’d have been very lucky to get out of period dramas had she been born and raised in Great Britain.
Also, I am more than a little amused to see her opposite Mr Gerard Butler in THE CHERRY ORCHARD: out of curiosity, has Oor Gerry been given the Frock Flicks treatment at any point?
I know he’s got some form in costume dramas (and has been known to show off quite a bit of his form for the sake of scrupulous historical inaccuracy, as in 300).
Aha! Further research reveals that Mr Gerard Butler HAS, in fact, been given the honour of a Man Crush Monday (and so far as I can tell quite early in the blog’s history to boot).
Always good to see a Glesca boy do well.
Also, shouldn’t the unit of lockable chests technically be a ‘dish’ rather than a ‘raft’?
For me, it’s Heavenly Creatures. The directing and editing were top notch, and Lynshey and Winslet were believable as very intense, not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are friends.
Such a wonderful actor. I’ve loved her since 1997 (I actually saw Heavenly Creatures in the theatre!).
I encourage FF to move your window forward. It’s time to include the 1970s without constantly apologizing with “This is really outside our purview, but….” Just name it and claim it. Who cares? I’m 55 and I remember the 70s, but it was a very long time ago.
Love you guys.
Of course being a Kiwi, I am a huge Heavenly Creatures fan and am very proud of our Melanie. She’s currently in Matlock and it’s so good to see her again!