10 Breakthrough Performances From 2014's Rising Movie Stars

3. Sarah Snook - Predestination

Returning to Australia for another actress who delivered a superb breakthrough performance this year, this time the genre in question science fiction of the time traveling variety rather than the creeping suburban mom horror of The Babadook. Predestination's greatest weakness is its over-ambition, which is a small criticism to make when so many films aim too low - a slightly incoherent, overly convoluted plot is hardly the worst cinematic crime of the year. It means that summarising the time traveling/identity crisis plot is kind of futile and would only spoil the (many) surprises, suffice to say that it involves a time travelling agent attempting to hunt down a terrorist bomber and a mysterious man who arrives at the bar he tends for his cover in the past who starts relaying a very unusual story indeed - and who may or may not be a man, depending on the "when" in question. Australian actress Sarah Snook inhabits a delicate line between femininity and masculinity and Predestination's narrative untangles the mysteries of her background as it teases with issues surrounding transgenderism, but ultimately her performance speaks to an underlying humanity which transcends questions of gender.