"One of the things that make Jude Law such an interesting actor, especially in his middle age, has been his ability to direct his flamboyance and his physicality towards unlikely ends. This flashy vitality was always there, and it made perfect sense back when he was a leading man and a romantic object. But now that he's playing wrecked FBI agents (in The Order) or failed philosophers (in Eden) or, well, Henry VIII (in Firebrand), he makes his presence known in different, less flattering ways"
"Instead, what Law finds in Putin is a riveting dismissiveness. His hurried and streamlined gaze gives others the smallest amount of attention; he barely looks at them when shaking their hands, and he certainly doesn't bother to get up. It's almost like the rest of the world doesn't exist for him, which then turns Putin's acknowledgement into the most precious of commodities."
Jude Law channels longstanding flamboyance and physicality into roles that emphasize griminess, baseness, and damaged masculinity rather than romantic charm. Recent performances include a wrecked FBI agent, a failed philosopher, and Henry VIII, signaling a career resurgence even as the films vary in quality and commercial success. In Olivier Assayas's The Wizard of the Kremlin Law portrays Vladimir Putin across two decades using makeup but no accent and without mimicking Putin's penetrating gaze. Law conveys Putin through a riveting dismissiveness: a hurried, streamlined stare that withholds attention and makes acknowledgement feel like a scarce, influential commodity.
Read at Vulture
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]