Jeff Goldblum: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked
Fly, hot geek... ACTION HERO?!
Classifying what "type" of actor Jeff Goldblum is is a fool's errand: he's one of those intriguing, enigmatic faces whose castings are invariably exciting, just as they are invariably surprising.
He's a darling of quirky film-makers like Wes Anderson: his delivery, his ethos and his screen majesty are all slightly other-worldly. There's an intangible, confident oddness that has burrowed into the collective consciousness even as he played action heroes in two massive sci-fi franchises.
He's a poster boy for difference, never so much as adapting to the genres he hops as leaving an impervious, Jeff Goldblum shaped imprint on them. And while that could sound like the opposite of an endorsement of his acting skill, he shows surprising range and incredible complexity across his CV.
First off, the awesome performances that made Goldblum one of Hollywood's most interesting figures...
5 Awesome Performances...
5. Morgan - Le Week-End (2013)
Hanif Kureishi's dramatic tale of gently decaying love and life is a creative institution dedicated to the ghosts of youth, the stark realisation of the present and more than anything, the profound impact of emotion brought crashing against new circumstance.
The central pair of Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan are excellent and utterly captivating as a couple who celebrate their 30 year anniversary by returning to their honeymoon spot to rekindle what seems to have been lost. It goes disastrously, thanks in part to the arrival of Goldblum's Morgan, Nick's old university mate.
He is effectively cast as the snake in the Garden Of Eden, representing Broadbent's passionate, successful antithesis, and it is his invitation to a dinner party that really escalates the unravelling and the potential rebirth. Inevitably, the perfectly cast Goldblum is charming, witty and alluring, effectively a hand-grenade thrown at the plot with devastating, dashing results.