Meryl Streep: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
4. Lisa Metzger Prime (2005)
Some of Streep's recent great performances have been the lighter ones. Doubt was a career stand out to be sure, but it's been just as enriching and entertaining to see her as the venomous fashion magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, the emotionally confused divorcee in It's Complicated, and the hysterical matriarch in black comedy August: Osage County. Some actors who are fantastic in a dramatic context just can't hack comedy. It's a completely different set of skills, and a tough nut to crack. For the most part Streep has succeeded in her parlaying her dramatic skills into prat falls it's just that she doesn't always pick her comic turns so carefully as her straight roles. As is the case with Prime, a forgettable and mostly forgotten rom-com from a few years ago with Uma Thurman as an older woman who gets involved with a much younger man, and discloses all of the juicy details to her therapist, played by Streep. Shock twist the therapist is the boy's mother! And the film never quite recovers from that pretty trite little plot turn. Everyone does a fine job, it's just a very middle-of-the-road film that never demands too much from its stars.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
