Daryl Hannah

In Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Daryl Hannah walks along a hospital corridor in a nurse’s uniform and an eyepatch, whistling. The split screen puts Elle Driver beside the sleeping Bride, so there is nothing to distract us from the possibility of violence. We were unnerved by the whistle: she sounds entirely comfortable with what she might be about to do. Quentin Tarantino gives her a simple piece of business, and Hannah makes it the tensest minute in a film full of elaborate fights.

Her early breakthrough parts gave that physical assurance somewhere to go: the acrobatic replicant Pris in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), then the mermaid Madison in Splash (1984). Both are characters whose bodies matter to the story, and they make good use of an actor willing to seem strange. The glamorous roles that often limited her early career asked less of her ability to work through movement, costume and mannerisms. She worked steadily in film and television through the 1980s and 1990s before the conspicuous return of the Kill Bill films.

Tarantino makes particularly good use of her willingness to be disliked. Cinematographer Robert Richardson’s hard, clean images in the first volume suit an entrance that needs no dialogue to establish its danger. In Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Hannah plays Elle as pure spite, and editor Sally Menke’s tight, dirty cutting gives her physical aggression the right rhythm. The lack of space around the bodies makes that aggression feel uglier and less comfortable to watch. Hannah offers no plea for sympathy, which is a relief.

There is a limit to how much such performances can do for an underwritten film. We still want more from the first volume’s characters, however well Hannah supplies the danger, and prefer the second film’s willingness to slow down and let people speak. Start with Elle Driver if the mermaid has left the impression that Hannah is harmless.