Anna Paquin

In The Piano (1993), Anna Paquin holds our attention even beside Holly Hunter's concentrated intensity. Flora McGrath has a force of her own, and Paquin makes the child's defiance worth taking seriously. There is emotional complexity here that a merely precocious performance would have missed. We were unsettled by Paquin because Flora's desires matter too, in a film full of adults struggling over who gets to decide. Her youth does not make the character simple.

Jane Campion gives that performance room by leaving the competing desires awkward and refusing to make passion an excuse for behaviour. Paquin and Hunter give the film enough life to keep its severity from becoming a reason to turn away. Michael Nyman's music sometimes presses harder than either performance needs. We would prefer less insistence from the score when the actors already have our attention.

After that debut came child and teenage supporting parts through the 1990s, then a place in Cameron Crowe's ensemble in Almost Famous (2000). As Polexia Aphrodisia, Paquin is one of the company in a film whose performances make its teenage enthusiasm convincing. Our enthusiasm for it comes with a caveat: Crowe's nostalgia softens behaviour that deserves a harder look. It is a generous film, sometimes too generous to its people. We recommend it warmly, though The Piano gives a much clearer reason to seek out Paquin herself.

Rogue in X-Men (2000) brought wider recognition; Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood (2008–2014) gave her a sustained television lead. Supernatural work sits alongside independent films in her career, and ensemble acting and long-form character development are strengths. The early pattern of outspoken, intense young outsiders does carry a risk of repetition, though that is a reservation about the casting. We would not mistake the frequency of those parts for the limit of what she can do. Begin with The Piano, and do not expect Flora to make the evening comfortable.