[custom_adv] Some of the greatest acting feats of the year belonged to women who owned every moment in front of the camera, from the star-crossed lovers of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” to the stripper team-up of “Hustlers.” [custom_adv] Let no critic tear asunder a love this pure and enduring. It would be impossible to single out just one of the exquisite performances at the heart of Céline Sciamma’s period masterpiece, which paints in gorgeous detail the tender and ill-fated romance between a portrait artist (Merlant) and her reticent subject (Haenel). [custom_adv] At 120 minutes of pure cinematic beauty, every stunning moment is ripe with unspoken desire; the film is built on the kinetically charged glances that pass between the two women. [custom_adv] It’s no easy task for an actor, but Merlant and Haenel fill every silence with a pulsing attraction, simmering just below their stolid propriety and stubborn resistance. But Sciamma loves a good crescendo, and she unleashes the floodwaters with unbridled sensuality in the film’s (multiple) climaxes. [custom_adv] Haenel and Merlant excel here, too, falling fervently into the other’s embrace with teenage voraciousness. Then, in their inevitable separation, expelling every heartache with a resolute wisdom beyond their years. Together, their performances make a kind of cinematic alchemy that belongs on the walls of a museum. [custom_adv] Some of the greatest acting feats of the year belonged to women who owned every moment in front of the camera, from the star-crossed lovers of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” to the stripper team-up of “Hustlers.”
