Bryce Dallas Howard: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

5 That Sucked

5. Tear Drop Diamond (2008)

When this lost Tennessee Williams movie script was discovered (dating all the way back to 1957) Bryce Dallas Howard was cast as main protagonist Fisher Willow, the heiress to a large fortune, who is being styled to find a suitor against her wishes. Too brash to find a love-interest among her own 'high society', she falls for Jimmy, a man of unsuitable social background to be her husband. Howard's character is, ostensibly at least, supposed to be brash and daring, a sort of Southern Belle who is unwilling to allow her spirit to be crushed. While Howard turns in a decent performance, it is far from the more theatrical performance the part calls for. Serviceable though the acting is, it's never mesmerising or even strong enough to sustain our attention for two hours. It's a shame because the source material caused such a stir when it was first found; since it's a script from the legendary Tennessee Williams, the expectation was Howard would knock this one out of the ball park. Not bad, but not quite good enough.